POP REVIEW : The Emcee Hammer Show

Like any politician, Hammer--the first and still only real superstar rapper--strides a surprisingly fine line between pure ego and egalitarianism.

The suffocating self-centeredness of his signature boasts is reminiscent of warmed-over LL Cool J at best, billowy braggadocio about “survival of the fittest” meant to be justified by its inspirational pretensions. Yet, unlike many another classic pop narcissist, he’s savvy enough to share his spotlight in a big way, and you might go to a Hammer show not so much to glory in the persona of the man himself as to bask in the concept of community made disciplined, sprawling spectacle.

Though Hammer is most apt to place himself in the estimable company of James Brown and Michael Jackson, he’s actually closer in his admirable, inclusive revue-style company politics to Prince, albeit on a far more anaerobic level. Glorifying The Burn in a big, outsize way, it’s DeMille meets LaLanne.

At the Forum on Friday (the first of two nights there, followed by a scheduled Irvine Meadows show on Sunday), Hammer had along his usual cast of dozens, toting nine live musicians, 11 singers and 14 dancers, by our best count--and an exact calculation was tough, given the level of perpetual motion exacted during most of the production’s 10 numbers.

And, as with previous outings, his choice of opening acts seems to reflect an eagerness to give the crowd its money’s worth, not to mention a secure lack of worry about being upstaged. This tour, he brought along three highly popular R&B; acts, none of them associated with his own boutique label: Boyz II Men, Jodeci and TLC.

If anything, Hammer may have been a bit too self-effacing this time. His most marketable commodity may be his mass choreography, but this time around, he’s selling himself as a rapper first and a dancer only secondarily, letting the other members of his troupe have virtually all the flashy moves while he cheerleads.

When he calls out “Hammer time” during his hit “U Can’t Touch This,” you expect to see the star of the show go into his signature twirls and dips; instead, you got a fellow brought up from the front row, plus a female member of the troupe who performed admittedly remarkable feats of physiology with her posterior--but no Hammer moves to speak of. Similarly, during the closing “Too Legit 2 Quit,” the spotlight was given over to a talented little tyke, with Hammer doing more urging on than urgent hoofing himself.

The pacing of the show was also curious. Where the “Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em” tour was a dizzying masterwork of exhaustive, frenetic energy in its bare hour on stage, this show--only a little longer at 75 minutes--proved full of lulls, as Hammer and his posse went into forced, scripted shtick between numbers. At times, the attempt at modulating the pace worked, bringing the crowd from 0 to 60 in the space of one pounding opening bar after a chat break, but eventually the purposeful succession of dead spots created a lack of momentum that had most of the eager attendees off their feet and in their seats.

Still, lulls and all, there’s no other stage production in pop quite like Hammer’s, taking full advantage as it does of the time-tested, oft-overlooked appeal of the chorus line. And though his videos might have gotten a tad glitzier, the show itself still relies--a couple of token fireworks displays notwithstanding--on the breathlessness and the ballistic precision of people , en masse, for its power to delight. The politics of dancing makes up for a multitude of rhymes.

Of the opening acts, Jodeci offered the biggest quotient of teen-girl appeal, judging from the inordinate amount of squealing given them when Hammer thanked the support acts at show’s end, though Boyz II Men certainly came close. Likable as both were, neither offered considerably more than the usual smooth harmonies and stock racy thrusts. TLC, the female combo best known for matching squeaky-clean faces with condoms-as-outer-wear, offered far more individuality and spunk, gimmick-laden or no.