Now, some eight months after that horrible day, a handful of hip-hop artists are releasing songs that take a more contrary stance. Some criticize the military action in Afghanistan, and others are cynical about the praise heaped upon the New York Police Department. Several songs scoff at the country's flag-waving fervor, and one accuses the government of directly sponsoring the attacks on the World Trade Center.

While mainstream hip-hop has been strikingly apolitical over the past decade, the practice of reacting to current events in rhymes is a tradition that dates to hip-hop's formative years. ''There's an expectation that hip-hop should comment on the war, which really goes back to {Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five's} `The Message,''' says Jeff Chang, a New York hip-hop critic who's working on the book ''Can't Stop Won't Stop: A Political History of the Hip-Hop Generation'' (St. Martin's). ''That song hit at the height of the Reagan recession in '82, and it was what people wanted to hear. Whenever there's been recession or war or violence in the streets, hip-hop has always been putting it up front, into the music.''