**1/2 Mystikal

LET'S GET READY

(Jive)

Like all great companies, the No Limit Army was worth much more than the sum of its parts. So these days, with the once unstoppable empire very much in decline, there's not much left to salvage. Master P's sports-management agency has been exposed as a pipe dream. And cutout-bin rappers like C-Murder are unlikely to spark a major-label bidding war anytime soon. Just about the only person whose stock has risen since the fall of No Limit is Mystikal, the wild-eyed MC whose half-whispered, half-shouted verses were the driving force behind No Limit classics like "Make Em Say Uhh" and "It Ain't My Fault."

Mystikal's new single, "Shake Ya Ass," is his best ever, showcasing his Yosemite Sam vocals ("Don't be scurred!") in a song that's equal parts Bill Withers and Super Mario Brothers. The rest of the album isn't consistently great, but it is consistently entertaining, and the best tracks put the No Limit catalogue to shame: the taut, rubbery "Big Truck Boys" reunites Mystikal with the former No Limit producer KLC; and the OutKast collaboration "Neck uv da Woods" takes an unexpected lurch toward high-BPM electronica. As with this performer's three previous albums, the rhymes are front and center: to listen to Mystikal is to realize a world of possibility -- constantly shifting meter, unexpected interjections, and a whole arsenal of strange voices -- that makes most rappers sound as if they were just talking.

-- Kelefa Sanneh