MUSIC: NOT YOUR FATHER'S HIP-HOP

THERE'S A WITTILY INCENDIARY scene in Spike Lee's film Do the Right Thing in which a group of Hispanics and a lone black man spar with each other by turning up their radios to louder, increasingly confrontational volumes. The scene challenges the old cliche that music is the universal language. Often, in fact, it is an expression of what divides us--Shania Twain and Tupac Shakur don't share much of a crossover audience. It's therefore a delight to encounter two engaging, offbeat new rap groups, the Japanese-American duo Cibo Matto and the Haitian-American trio the Fugees. Neither makes overtly integrationist music--no hip-hop...