By Lee Hildebrand

TRACY AND I were comparing notes on our 13-year-old daughters' musical tastes as we waited to pick up the girls outside Sacramento's Arco Arena following B2K's late-running "Scream 3" concert. After learning that her teenager's bedroom walls are plastered with B2K, Bow Wow, and Aaliyah posters, as are my kid's, I asked her if she'd ever heard of a group from Oakland called 4Deep.

"Sure," said Tracy, whom I'd just met. "My daughter's crazy about them."

The Sacramento teen, like my girl and thousands of others around the globe, had been led to www.4deeponline.com through fan postings on message boards devoted to B2K, the hottest African American teen singing group. The Web site went up last August, nearly a year in advance of the group's debut CD, and of late has been averaging 1.5 million hits a month, according to 4Deep's manager, Oakland entertainment attorney Inga Sander.

"They're cute," Tracy said of 4Deep, explaining the appeal of a group her daughter had never heard but whose handsome faces she'd been admiring on the Internet.

Several weeks later, at Jack London Square in Oakland, teenage girls dominated the crowd at a free outdoor performance by 4Deep and chanted along to "Ya Boi," the quartet's debut single, which KMEL-FM began playing in heavy rotation in March.

"Ooh, ooh," they chirped, waving their hands in the air like they just didn't care, as Milly, Ice-Kid, A.E., and Lil' Brotha delivered their rhymes – at times tag-team style, then together – spitting words rapid-fire, as if shot from a Gatling gun. "You betta watch your boy / You don't wanna lose your boy / You betta get ahold of your boy / 'Cause we got what it takes to rock your world," the four clean-cut 16-year-olds rapped, shaking hands and bumping hips with female fans while working the pavement in front of the stage in oversize white T-shirts and baggy jeans.

Blaring behind the group – who appear to have the potential of being the hottest hip-hop act to come out of Oakland since MC Hammer – were prerecorded tracks that throbbed with syncopations akin to Master P's work with Lil' Romeo, though 4Deep's lyrics are less pubescent. "We can hide away like Osama bin Laden," they suggested in one of their tongue-twisting odes to girls, clothes, jewelry, and cars.

Also in the Oakland audience – and seated behind the MCs while they signed autographs for some 200 young women who'd waited patiently in line after the 25-minute show – was 16-year-old southern California rapper Oryan, younger brother of B2K member Omarion Grandberry. Oryan has been hanging out with 4Deep since last August, when he and B2K first bumped into 4Deep at a Jack London Square pizza parlor following separate performances – B2K at the Compaq Center in San Jose, 4Deep at the Third Street Fair in San Francisco.

One raps, the other sings

The B2K connection has done much to build hype for 4Deep and their debut CD, 4nomenon, released July 29 on the group's own Pyromania Entertainment label, though 4Deep are quick to point out differences between the two groups. "We rap; they sing," explained Alex Edwards, a.k.a. A.E., while chilling with the rest of the group on a bench along the Oakland Estuary. "They're a little bit more older than us, but it's still all music, and it's still all positive."

You won't find a Parental Advisory sticker on 4nomenon, though A.E. admits that one tune has "hell" and "damn" in it. He's been writing songs since he was in third grade, when his mother began noticing – and objecting to – the lyrics in some of the hip-hop hits he was rapping. "I liked a lotta Dr. Dre, a lotta Snoop Dogg, a lotta Tupac, a lotta Jay-Z, a lotta B.I.G.," he recalled. "Those all had certain vulgar language. My mom said that a lot of the words kinda degraded women. I respected that, so I said, 'OK, if you won't let me rap those songs, I'll write my own songs to rap around the house.' "

"I don't think that cuss words or a gangsta delivery makes music," he added. "It should just be about how good the music is, not about what you're claiming or where you're from."

"If you don't live that gangsta life, I don't think that's something you should portray," Alex "Lil' Brotha" Buffington interjected. "You do you, and that's what we do. We're not fronters. We like being us. We like doing us." Dr. Dre and other prominent gangsta rappers have been accused of fronting, but when I mentioned this to the guys, they were quick to point out that they're not calling anyone a wanksta. Dissing may be a hip-hop tradition, but it's not part of 4Deep's game plan.

Catholic tastes

A.E., Lil' Brotha, and their cousins Ryan "Milly" Fluis and Alex "Ice-Kid" Coffin-Lennear have been making music together at school events and street fairs since they were 11. All grew up in different parts of Oakland, save for Lil' Brotha, who was raised in Richmond and currently lives in Las Vegas. "I'm constantly on the airplane just to come out here to record and do shows and autograph signings," he said. "I live on the airplane. It's real tiring, but it's worth it."

Until career commitments forced the members to pursue independent studies, all attended Catholic schools. A.E. feels parochial-school discipline may have contributed to the group's positive approach to both hip-hop and business. "It's all about where the student's mind is," he said. "It's all about where the student wants to be, the path he wants to choose. If you want to follow the right path – be an entrepreneur or an athlete, anything you wanna be – you can make that happen. If you wanna go down the wrong path, follow the wrong examples, you can make that happen too."

4Deep are, in many ways, a family affair. Their godmother, choreographer Kim Sims-Battiste, serves as road manager and sometimes supplies dancers from two of her hip-hop troupes, Culture Shock and Future Shock, to join 4Deep onstage, as she did for a performance at a recent African American youth convention in Washington, D.C., hosted by television personality and author Tavis Smiley.

Only Ice-Kid, who remained fairly quiet during the interview, hails from a musical family. He's the son of veteran Oakland R&B saxophonist Larry Lennear and great-great-grandson of Warsaw, Poland-born pianist Arthur Rubinstein, one of the most celebrated classical musicians of the last century.

All of the members' parents have been highly supportive of their career, especially Milly's dad, Carl Fluis, who helped his son design 4Deep's Web site. "My parents were, like, totally against the whole music thing at first," Milly said. "But when they saw how we'd grown and matured in this music, and how we put on a great show, and how we're so focused and determined, they've been behind it 100 percent."

At present 4nomenon is available only in select stores, including Amoeba Music in Berkeley and Tower Records nationwide. "Major distribution is definitely hollering at us, so we're trying to holler back," A.E. offered. Initial airplay for the CD has included stations in Las Vegas.

The group members believe much of the excitement surrounding them was generated on the Internet. "We've had a few Web sites," Milly said. "It started getting crazy, and more people started knowing us, so we made a better Web site with a message board, chat, show dates, news, and all that – just for the fans, so they can go check up on us. I made the Web site, but my dad, like, controls everything."

The color photographs of the fly foursome found at www.4deeponline.com may have an appeal similar to those of B2K, but the members of 4Deep insist there's much more to the group than looks.