Divine Styler Featuring the Scheme Team

  • Divine Styler Featuring the Scheme Team
  • Word Power (Rhyme Syndicate/Epic) 1989 

Rapping like a hyped Islamic math teacher prone to free association, Divine Styler drops a brief lecture on the speed of light into “Koxistin U4ria” on his ambitious but dull debut, released via Ice-T’s label. The verbose expositions on Afrocentricity, faith in Allah and racism (white and black) are loaded with intriguing, frequently obscure content, but Styler can’t make them musical, and the sketchy tracks (co-produced by Bilal Bashir) don’t help.

[Ira Robbins]