Keeping up with the fast-talkers

Ghostface Killah: Fishscale
Herald rating: * * * * *
Ex-Wu Tang proves fish really is good for your brain.

Mobb Deep: Blood Money
Herald rating: * *
50 Cent's latest vanity project
Label: The Infamous/G-Unit

The Coup: Pick A Bigger Weapon
Herald rating: * * * *
Bay Area provides another great excuse to grow a 'fro
Label: Epitaph

New Flesh: Universally Dirty
Herald rating: * * *
British tongue-twisters paint bold but bleak picture
Label: Big Dada

As the Wu Tang Clan's most consistent MC, it's no surprise to find Ghostface Killah's fifth album, Fishscale, is a triumph: wacky, cryptic and brutal. Ghost has an uncanny ability to sound as though he's rhyming straight off the cuff, and he does it over incendiary beats by Just Blaze, Pete Rock, MF Doom and Lewis Parker.

Not everyone will love the subject matter - Ghost still raps about coke deals gone wrong, and on Big Girl he hypocritically looks down his nose at chicks who put lines up theirs. But he weaves his stories with a dexterity that trumps most rappers, and his knack of picking just the right beats makes his vices easy to forgive.

On Kilo, he does his thing as a woman coos, "A kilo is a thousand grams, easy to remember," with the innocence of a school girl. On the sublime Beauty Jackson, he proves his storytelling brilliance over droopy 70s funk and soul. Be Easy is an instant hands-in-the-air Ghost classic. Its only downfall is the large number of skits but they're the only bones in this collection of chunky cuts.

Blood Money, on the other hand, is the sound of a corporate takeover. Mobb Deep are the business; 50 Cent is the Trump rebranding them. On the Queensbridge duo's solid seventh album, the artists in question are so swamped by their guest stars it's hard to know where they start and their new labelmates end. Fiddy turns up on about six of the 16 tracks which also feature G-Unit's Lloyd Banks and Young Buck, and although the results don't reach the heights of either group of artists, Prodigy's lazy delivery sits well with G-Unit's dark, cinematic beats.

For such a merging of such big names, this is strangely lacking in tracks that hit you in the face. Only the remix of It's Alright, which demands to be further upfront, is an obvious slammer. Elsewhere Prodigy's straight-up rhymes tend toward gun and sleaze talk. The Infamous sounds as though they've hijacked a TV crime show; on Backstage Pass he sucks up to the boss, talking about the groupies who want to hang out with G-Unit. If you agree, you might enjoy this.

MC Boots Riley of the Bay Area's the Coup has a more independent take, and on Pick a Bigger Weapon he peacefully walks the picket line as though he's back in the 70s. Over nostalgic beats by his DJ cohort Pam the Funkstress and a band featuring Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, the duo's fifth album is an intelligent, witty affair that would make Outkast jealous.

Fans of the "raptivist" Riley will know his political and social commentary comes with a pinch of humour: he jokes about Bush and Hussein in bed together then spins a surprising poignant tale of a woman killed by liposuction.

"I'm here to laugh, love, [expletive] and drink liquor, and help the damn revolution come quicker," he raps, like Michael Franti with a chip on his shoulder.

That said, the album could do without some literally stinky rhymes: "When I'm running from the po-lice I don't have to rush, I'm so dope I just jump in the toilet and flush," he hoots over beats that sound like Prince having a truly 80s moment. But on the anti-war rant My Favourite Mutiny , with Black Thought and Talib Kweli, he shows what he's made of, living up to both his guests.

Speaking of fast talkers, when Dizzee Rascal talked his way on to the scene, his rapid-fire rhymes and twitchy beats heralded an innovative direction in hip-hop. Although he wasn't the first to comb his heritage with lightning rhymes, he's spawned a slew of irritating knock-offs. But New Flesh, conveniently lumped into the same Brit-grime movement, have invented their own sound, characterised by producer Part 2's infectious dancehall, bouncing reggae and tongue-twisting couplets from MCs Juice Aleem and Toastie Taylor. "Who's the daddy?" they ask, knowing full well what the answer is.

On tracks like Backyard, they're more explosive than that short black you have in the morning; later they sound as though they've been rhyming since the womb, and things happen so fast it's hard to know who's doing the talking - both have at least three different voices. It's clever stuff that fans of M.I.A will appreciate but after a while the words start to jab at your brain like hot-pokers and the tuneless beats leave your "ear bleedin". Bring on the Chocolate Bubbles.