By now you should know about Dr. Dre's protégé, Eminem--the white kid from Detroit who dropped a Beavis-esque buttload of misogynist revenge fantasies and self-deprecation over jacked-up East Coast underground-style beats. His Slim Shady LP (Interscope) sold in the quintuple-digit range its first week out. Eminem's is the best punk/rap hybrid since Straight Outta Compton--as forthright and honest as it is mired in bathroom humor and juvenile fantasy (power starvation is the secret link). And it's charting like a Licensed to Ill or a Cypress Hill.

So if you miss that whole rascal-on-acid-with-a-gun routine--or better yet if you have a teenage nephew in whose eyes you wish to appear as one cool-ass yuppie--look Eminem up. The rock establishment's reaction to it has been almost as funny as the album (Billboard's Timothy White all but dubbed the guy Satan, Jr.), but it's gonna be more interesting to compare the ascension of this white, wise-ass rap star to that of the Beastie Boys. Right now Eminem is accepted on black radio and "real" rap record stores, but at some point he'll disappear off hiphop heads' radar, just like the Beasties and Cypress Hill did. I'm curious as to exactly what it's gonna take. In New York, the "modern rock" radio station, which doesn't play any black rap acts, has Eminem in rotation. That'll probably do it.

Eminem raps about starting fires, o.d.'ing on 'shrooms, murdering cheating girlfriends and stuff like that--like I said, he's funny. What's striking, though, in 1999, is the contrast between that old Beastie Boys schtick and the modern ghetto-rap paradigm, which involves a character who sells drugs and shoots business competitors. The most important difference seems to be that the black criminals are employed, and don't have as much fun. Instead they get respect--of a particular type that Eminem knows he'll never enjoy. The white-rap fantasy seems to be more about rejecting birthrights, like freedom from police harassment and an office job. Somehow, this act of defiance doesn't endear the knapsack crowd or our favorite punk rappers to the connoisseurs who think the best thing you can say about an artist is that people fear him.

Maybe there's some pathology there (then again, Cormega's "Sex, Drugs, Bitches and Money" is a really good song), but playa-worship hardly compares to white-boy indulgences, from Jerry Lee Lewis to Jim Morrison to Black Sabbath to the Beasties. At least with the last, we disrespectful whippersnappers were led to America's real dark side. Some even admitted that was where the Boys' coolness was coming from, even though Licensed To Ill's message of petty rebellion was clearly meant for us. The real communication is, of course, the medium. So when you hear Eminem, and see your nephew strutting around to "Just Don't Give a Fuck," don't forget to ask yourself who's co-opting who.

Meanwhile, hiphop style is becoming cooler yet. The current crop of new releases is the best in years, starting last month with the release of Prince Paul's masterly Prince among Thieves and the Roots' breakthrough, Things Fall Apart. The New York underground is gonna go into high gear and try to make its presence felt in places like Detroit and maybe even Seattle--look for Rawkus' label comp Soundbombing II and the debut album of a Chicago group called Rubberoom (signed to Manhattan label 3-2-1) to come rippling across the plains come spring.

I strongly recommend Scaramanga's (a.k.a. Sir Menelik) debut album, Seven Eyes Seven Horns (Sun Large), and Metaboliks' The M-Virus (Wordsound). Nas' I Am...The Autobiography is a question mark at this point, but it'll have tracks produced by Premier, so there ya go. The fourth Mobb Deep album will slam. And if you think the Wu-Tang empire won't strike back, do like P.R.T. said and get off the crack.

Late-breaking story: The Cali-based underground DJ Kut Masta Kurt recently told an interviewer his version of the "truth" behind the 1996 landmark Dr. Octagon album. Known as a collaboration between rapper Kool Keith and producer The Automator, Dr. Octagon's self-titled album was rereleased by Dreamworks--a deal arranged through Automator's connections to the Dust Brothers, who are wired at Dreamworks. A planned Dr. Octagon tour never happened--most assumed this was because Keith was crazy. On his solo tour, the former Ultramagnetic MC ranted from various stages about his 100 percent right to the Octagon name and profits, but it seemed like part of the show.

Now Kurt, who produced Kool Keith's Sex Style and the forthcoming Dr. Doom is calling Automator a punk who "rode our coattails" and ran away with the royalties. The interview appeared in something called "The Bond," but key excerpts were mysteriously mass-e-mailed to rap writers all over the country. If true, it at least explains what happened to Dr. Octagon.