It's difficult to know whether to address this as art, socio-political commentary, a frantic public health bulletin or the matrix of a moral and political maelstrom that has touched raw nerves across America. The fact is, it's all of the above. And Duwayne "Da Priest" Brown (an ordained minister and staffer at T.D. Jakes' Potter's House) has without question stirred a fire in the furnace of "culture ways" that smolders across this country. Da Priest, who wrote and produced the album's 12 songs, lays his raps atop solid, streetwise grooves. Having publicly retracted implications of gay bashing, Da Priest pulls no punches in his treatise directed at what he decries as the wanton excesses and dangers certain aspects and off-shoots of the hip-hop culture have spawned. Like him, loathe him or any point in between, Da Priest has started a discussion that may well continue for some time to come. —Gordon Ely