Russell Baillie: Too many unwrapped chips without a shoulder

Newsflash: there are other American rappers apart from Eminem.

Heck, even the marketing whizzes behind the two "soundtracks" to 8 Mile know that. The first was a contemporary collection "inspired by" the movie and Eminem's four tracks, while the more recent More Music From 8 Mile is the music from the film itself with tracks from its 1995 period.

But doing the "inspired by" thing were Jay-Z and Nas with a track apiece.

Usually, the two New Yorkers only share a mutual feud. It all started because somebody once said somethin' bad about someone's ability to rhyme/crew/mama/who knows, or cares?

But they both released albums - Jay-Z's double collection The Blueprint 2: The Gift and the Curse (Roc-A-Fella) and Nas' God's Son (Columbia) right on Christmas time, as is the American hip-hop marketing tradition.

But the yuletide timing - and here we introduce into the discussion Ja Rule's new offering The Last Temptation (Murder Inc/Def Jam) - could be down to the another notion: these guys all share something of a Jesus complex.

Yes, well, comparing yourself to Christ is always going to get you noticed. Sometimes by white Middle America, sometimes by men in white coats. It's most noticeable on the Nas track The Cross ("for you rappers I carry the cross"), a slice of boastful borderline blasphemous megalomania which is produced by Eminem.

But to the prolific Jay-Z (who sometimes adopts the persona "Jay-Hova") and Nas, it seems all part of seeing themselves as the next in line of those hip-hop martyrs Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur whose names they both invoke and whose tracks they both sample heavily.

The opening of Jay-Z's 22-track opus lifts Smalls' voice from the track Juicy (itself a reworking of Mtume's funk classic Juicy Fruit), while his duet with Destiny's Child's Beyonce Knowles Bonnie and Clyde '03 takes 2Pac's Me and My Girlfriend as its own blueprint.

Nas basically covers 2Pac's Thugz Mansion on his own album and he's a guest star with Shakur on the Ja Rule album track The Pledge (Remix).

Yes, these are albums of the sixth sense - I hear dead people - and proof that mainstream hip-hop can be the afterlife of the party.

As might be expected by its double-album approach, The Blueprint 2 is an overstuffed affair. It does have diverse guest stars who are still breathing - as well as Knowles, there's Lenny Kravitz on the goofy rap-rocker Guns & Roses (no relation) and veteran voice Rakim. It has big-name producers, too, in Dr Dre, Timbaland, and the Neptunes who, alongside Outkast's Big Boi on Poppin' Tags give it some much needed fizz-factor.

But there are frequent duds. And his list of verbal complaints - especially the one where he moans no one noticed he donated some ticket sales to 9/11 relief efforts - and occasional lyrical barbs aimed at Nas make it just another album by a hip-hop heavyweight with too many chips and not quite enough shoulder.

Nas' is a tighter, more focused set. It, too, has forgettable bits. But in its combination of allusions to him upstairs, 2Pac, Black Panther chic (on Warrior Song with Alicia Keys and Revolutionary Warfare), as well as managing to revive James Brown's Funky Drummer as a fundamental hip-hop beat on opening track Get Down, it makes for an album that sounds as crazy and dangerous as his nearest rival thinks he is.

As for Mr Rule, well, his fourth album might be his bid to regain hip-hop credibility having leased his gruff voice - think Shaggy in smog in a bad mood - to too many pop videos alongside the likes of J-Lo, Mariah Carey and his R&B offsider Ashanti.

He still has pop success in mind, as another Ashanti duet (the forgettable Mesmerize) and one with Bobby Brown (the amusing Thug Lovin') indicate. Those Neptunes are here, too, giving the track Pop Niggas an infectious twitch while the sampling of Toto's Africa on Murder Reigns is inspired pop cannibalism.

But it's hard to see The Last Temptation being the resurrection of Ja Rule, hip-hop hard man.

Jay-Z (Herald rating: * * * )

Nas (Herald rating: * * * * )

Ja Rule (Herald rating: * * * )