Eminem, 504 Boyz, Drama, Wood, En Vogue, Big Pun, Common, and 95 South

Long time no Beat, so pour yourself a tall Tanqueray and Country Time and kick back by the pool with jams guaranteed to keep the party bumpin' 'til Ol' Blue Eyes' summer wind is a distant memory. Starting with the latest from Eminem, the white-chocolate wild child's sophomore effort The Marshall Mathers LP (Aftermath/Interscope) picks up right where his multi-platinum Slim Shady LP left off: Em getting lifted, cursing his mom, palling around with Dr. Dre, and generally revelling in his sing-songy perversion. This kid's got problems -- chiefly what to do with all that loot... The No Limit army has been through some thangs lately too, like watching those Cash Money hot boyz eclipse the Tank for dominance of New Orleans' steamy hip-hop scene. Master P and the rest of his 504 Boyz come back hard on Goodfellas (No Limit), proving that if the Soldiers aren't quite 'bout it 'bout it individually, combined they remain plenty rowdy rowdy... Newcomer Drama wins the Tupac lookalike contest for the cover of his Causin' Drama debut (Atlantic), but the Atlantan's lockstep martial rhymes place him somewhere between Goodie Mob's Cee-Lo and Louis Gossett Jr. in An Officer and a Gentleman... Texas-side, the Southside keeps blazin' thanks to H-Town's Wood, whose Against the Grain (Straight Profit Records) does the Screwed Up Clik proud with a humid gumbo of sticky synth and Scarface references that starts more fires than the Astros' bullpen of late... Any heat-centered discussion would be incomplete without mentioning En Vogue, and Masterpiece Theatre (Elektra) features the irresistibly creeping single "Riddle," a handful of sultry, jazz-inflected showpieces, and slick appropriations from Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, and Doris Day. One piece of advice, though: less Oprah, more Salt 'n' Pepa... Memorial Day is an ideal time to give big ups to the late Big Pun, and the barely posthumous Yeeeah Baby (Loud) finds the Boricuan heavyweight still crushin' the competition with symphonic ghetto dramas of his own. R.I.P., Señor Rios... Chicagoan Common recently relocated to Pun's NYC turf, and the uptown setting is an fine milieu for Like Water for Chocolate (MCA). Teaming with kindred spirits D'Angelo, ?uestlove, Roy Hargrove, and Mos Def, Common works a sophisticated, intellectual groove that leaves plenty of room for late-night belly-rubbin'... "Intellectual" might not immediately spring to mind when 95 South's Tightwork 3000 (BMG) starts booming from your JBLs, but the wet 'n' wild Orlando collective's bass-quakin' big-booty thump is tighter than a string bikini and more refreshing than an open fridge. Summertime -- when the living is easy!