**1/2 Brand Nubian

FOUNDATION

(Arista)

This year has seen a number of classic groups from the golden era of hip-hop return to the fold, some of whom, like Gang Starr, have scored with new work that's just as ill as their seminal albums. Others, like A Tribe Called Quest, have fallen below par. Reunited for the first time since their 1990 debut (One for All), Brand Nubian land somewhere between phatness and failure on the new Foundation. Employing a who's who of contemporary hip-hop producers (DJ Premier, Diamond D, Lord Finesse), Grand Puba, Sadat X, and Lord Jamar (along with DJ Alamo) revisit the rhythmic wordplay, black-pride messages (minus the Nation of Islam rhetoric), and exciting triple-team rhyming that made Brand Nubian such a powerful hip-hop force in the early '90s. Despite a few feel-good R&B-influenced tracks (the "Maybe one day we can work it out" clichés of "Maybe One Day"), Foundation mostly works, especially when the trio question the ghetto-centricity of hip-hop, proclaiming "I live in the ghetto/The ghetto doesn't live in me" on "The Ghetto (Interlude)."

-- Michael Endelman