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Giving credit where it’s due, how the Ying Yang Twins have turned languid, absent-minded beats into the nastiest sound since “Me So Horny” booty bass is a Keyser Soze neat feat. “Wait (The Whisper Song)”—both the single and the ingeniously absurd remix with Missy Elliott, Free, Lil Scrappy, and Busta Rhymes—doesn’t rush you, and barely announces its presence with finger-snaps and a space-hollow beat that sounds like a rubber ball bounced three times. It’s nearly silent in places, bass vibrating car doors sometimes noisier than the song when the volume is pegged. And then comes that dick beating that pussy up, and America gets its morals shocked.

“Wait” isn’t the best song on United States of Atlanta; it’s just the one everyone loves and loves to hate. While hating, though, have the courtesy to admit it’s one of 2005’s most rhythmically experimental pop songs. Producer Mr. ColliPark concocts an overlong album of slippery moods and pulsating tempos that are as singularly Southern yet pan-black-music unique as Aquameni, even if the Twins only lyrically live up to the beats every so often. When they do—on “Ghetto Classics” and the album-ending party streak of “Badd,” “Put That Thing Down,” and “Shake”—the Ying Yang Twins make a stake for the good-time joys of DirtySouth&B. For a duo so associated with shrill crunk, what the Ying Yang Twins do best is soulful, easygoing dance jams. And while those few cuts here don’t save an inflated, inconsistent album, they’ll live on dance floors long after “Wait” is replaced by some new outrage.

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