** Pras

GHETTO SUPASTAR

(Ruffhouse/Columbia)

If Billy Bragg & Wilco can put their own tunes to Woody Guthrie's words, then Pras can lay his own words on other people's riffs. The catchiest, most felt moments on this album from the last Fugee proper to drop a solo disc come right at ya from the heart of hip-hop unorthodoxy: Pras introduces his alter ego, Dirty Cash, to the tune of "Grease" on "Blue Angels"; "Get Your Groove On" grooves on the same George McCrae smash that inspired Abba's "Dancing Queen"; and that Caribbean flava you hear on "What'cha Wanna Do" comes from a little something called "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?" It's precisely the kind of eclecticism you'd expect from a Panamanian-Haitian who made it up to Calc 2 at Rutgers and who can name-drop ballet moves (pas de bourrée). What you didn't expect are raps that dissolve into the dull and pro forma when the interpolations die down on the disc's second half, and straight renditions of the Hallelujah Chorus (yep, the one by Handel) and "Amazing Grace," the latter of which fellow Fugee Wyclef Jean would have made something new of, à la his "Guantanamera."

-- Kevin John