Consumer Guide Album

Kirk Franklin's Nu Nation: God's Property [B-Rite Music, 1997]
In extremis, choirmaster Franklin's platinum-certified, year-in-the-Billboard-200 Whatcha Lookin' 4 relied on the reflexive gospel strategy of bowling sinners over with solo vocal glory, leaving the skeptic impressed but kind of tired. Here, however, he's generally content to throw his appealing baritone over the sociable interplay of his 18 sopranos, 19 tenors, and 15 altos, thus keeping the enjoyment human-scale. And in extremis we get the gloriously obvious "Yes We Can-Can" and "One Nation Under a Groove" samples, which Kirk's host renders so much more righteous than Suge's posse you figure somebody up there has had it with the Devil getting all the good beats. B+