FannyPack

One of hip-hop’s great strengths is its ability to call attention to the pressing social issues of the day. Whether it was N.W.A. ripping L.A. cops on “Fuck tha Police,” Public Enemy lambasting urban medical care with “911 Is a Joke” or the Coup shredding corporate bigwigs on “Fat Cats, Bigga Fish,” rappers have always been music’s most outspoken soapboxers. Continuing in this tradition is FannyPack, a champagne bubblin’, boyfriend jugglin’ trio of tart-tongued Brooklyn flygirls who target the growing epidemic of the female frontal wedgie on their sleeper hit “Cameltoe.”

These sassy chatterboxes have an undeniable flair for wit. I gotta be blunt/Her spandex biker shorts were creepin’ up the front/I could see her uterus, they catcall over a production that positively screams 1985. The FannyPack gals are backed by a couple of DJ dudes who play it simple, with low-IQ beats and cheesed-out Atari-era sound effects that create an irresistibly danceable atmosphere.

So Stylistic peters out partway through, and the creative exhaustion is palpable. Leaving aside the standard assortment of mindless skits and other throwaway filler, a number of tracks sound as if they were cobbled together from the cutting-room floor, including the endurance-testing “Sugar Daddy,” three-plus minutes of an uninspired beat, a couple of computer-chip chirps and the words sugar daddy repeated nonstop. Critics have already crowed at length about the guilty pleasures of FannyPack, but at this point, all signs point to novelty act.