D.I.T.C.: D.I.T.C.

Hip-hop posse albums tend to be known more for their commercial calculation (if you like Ma$e, you'll love a group of unknowns vaguely associated with him!) and nepotism (if you like Ma$e, you'll love his rapping twin sister!) than for their artistic worth. D.I.T.C. (Diggin' In The Crates) is as much a supergroup as a posse—almost everyone involved is known individually—but its self-titled debut album is in many ways a standard posse album, predictably hampered by too many cooks and not enough inspiration. A group of established East Coast rappers and producers, D.I.T.C. is yet another collective whose rhymes revolve mostly around their own lyrical prowess and wealth and the weakness of their competitors, who, if these songs are to be believed, have far less money, power, respect, and skill. D.I.T.C. boasts gifted rappers (Fat Joe, the late Big L) and producers (Diamond, who has worked with Mos Def and Pharoahe Monch), which makes it even more of a shame that their debut seldom works for more than a verse at a time. For a group whose name pays tribute to the fine art of beat-collecting and DJing, the production is disappointingly monotonous, running the unfortunate gamut from DJ Premier at his least memorable to production that merely sounds like DJ Premier at his least memorable. Like too many hip-hop albums, D.I.T.C.'s best song is a tribute to a fallen rapper, the succinctly titled Big L homage "Tribute." That it so often takes death to bring out the humanity in hip-hop is unfortunate, as is the fact that it took so many gifted acts to make an album this forgettable.