MUSIC: Rap's Teen Idols Return

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It's hard to remember, and perhaps you tried to forget, but Hammer and Vanilla Ice were the two most popular rappers in America just four years ago. Hammer's album Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em and Ice's To the Extreme each sold more than 15 million copies worldwide. Both albums were pure Top 40, accessorized with rap cliches. But then the kids started listening to low- ridin', gun-totin', allegedly homicide-getaway-car-drivin' rappers like Snoop Doggy Dogg, and Hammer and Ice seemed about as corny as silver medalists at a Disney parade.

Now Hammer has a CD titled The Funky Headhunter, Ice has one called Mind Blowin', and both are presenting themselves as OGs -- Original Gangstas. Where Hammer used to wear harem pants and dancing shoes, he now appears in jeans and combat boots. After all, who's afraid of a guy in puffy pants? Hammer also now indulges in the requisite rapper carnality: in the video for his new song Pumps and a Bump, he wears the briefest of briefs and cavorts with bikini-clad women. Most of the parties involved are slathered in enough body oil to spawn a sequel to On Deadly Ground. As for Ice, his blond pompadour is gone in favor of droopy dreadlocks. Instead of looking like a tour guide for Graceland, he resembles yet another long-lost heir angling for a piece of the Bob Marley estate.

Although Hammer and Ice are both attempting to break with their unthreatening pasts, neither can resist recalling the anodyne megahits of yore. "Twenty-five million records, 20 countries and got love from 100 million," Hammer boasts in a spoken introduction to The Funky Headhunter. "You know you can't fade it." On his album, Ice raps, "My first LP went way over 11 million/ So don't front 'cause I know you were an Ice Fan." Both are also eager to avenge past slights. "Bust 'em in the back of their head," goes the chorus to the title track of Hammer's album, "for those lies that I know that they said." And Ice threatens, "A few suckers need their throat slit/ Jealous 'cause I went multiplatinum/ Now I'm going to blast 'em in the head till they're dead with my Magnum." Don't call it gangsta rap; call it sulking-star, self-pity rap.

Amid all the posturing, though, the two albums actually contain a few good songs. Hammer is a classy guy, businesslike and religious. Although he's trying to act tough, the most successful numbers on The Funky Headhunter -- Clap Yo' Hands and One Mo' Time -- have him riding the current wave of laid-back rap. The two songs grind along at an easy pace and feature sweet melodies that aren't obscured by Hammer's usual rhythmic assault.