* Silkk the Shocker

CHARGE IT TO DA GAME

(No Limit Records)

On any other label, the commercial performance of this debut CD by the self-professed thug and drug dealer Silkk the Shocker would be as unremarkable as his rap style is unoriginal. But since hardcore rap fans value family connections like lifeblood, his success is guaranteed by the mythic stature of his executive producer and main man, Master P, the founder and owner of No Limit Records. A New Orleans-bred entrepreneur, Master P has over the past year and a half built a gangsta rap empire by dragging the sound of Suge Knight's once mighty Death Row Records down to a new level of dull crudity and uniformity. From the regulation cover art to the rinky-dink keyboard effects to the simpish praises of hustling and bad-mouthing of women, everything on Charge It to da Game adheres to that principle. For every well-produced cut, you get four or five shots of rote product, a formula for cutting good junk with bad that any pusher will recognize.

-- Franklin Soults