HAVING gained enormous mainstream fame for his ability to customize automobiles on MTV, the latest ride Xzibit has pimped is his post-Sony recording career with his disc “Full Circle.”

The CD is a raw record that isn’t afraid to offend everyone – the cornrowed rapper tells it as he sees it. Xzibit not only raps clearly, he writes the words down in the CD booklet to be fathomed without confusion. Be it brave or stupid, few rappers have the guts to lay it down like this. That said, Mr. X is really, really offensive on “Rollin'” when he rhymes about his ability to induce fear in others: “Our father who art in heaven/got people jumping out the building like 9/11.”

That thoughtless couplet rips open the wound of 9/11 after five years of slow healing. Any New Yorker who lived through the terror attacks has every right to trash the man, and all the other words he wrote on the disc, and nobody would blame them.

If you can get over this foolish indiscretion, musically the record is Xzibit’s most complex and best yet, with intricate beats, and orchestration that zigs when most other rap records zag into cheesy strings.

The guy even shows he has a humorous side in his version of “Gold Digger” called “Scandalous Bitches.” On that song about girls who always get what they want, he takes a good natured poke at ladies’ man Usher: “I hear she’s f—ing with Usher, now Usher don’t know me, but I got love for the homie, even though everyone around me think he corny.”

The record has tracks that express compassion, love and appreciation for life, too. Then there’s the hate. Xzibit loathes dirty cops, and in his song “Ram Part Division” – rapped from the perspective of a policeman on the take – he ends the song with the scary notion “F— the Bloods and Crips, ‘cuz [the cops are] the biggest gang in L.A. F— with us – get blown away.”

While Xzibit isn’t making any friends in law enforcement – though even the fiercest police defenders can’t salvage much from the LAPD’s Rampart scandal – in street corner society, he’s saying what many urban teenagers are thinking. It’s a powerful song on an album that displays the kind of virulent political and cultural rhetoric that Sony wanted Xzibit to tone down.

He didn’t.

Because he’s a popular TV personality and he’s pushed past the envelope on this disc, Xzibit may well become a lightning rod for critics and moralists. But there’s nothing new in his ruthless words and graphic imagery that you haven’t already heard on the 6 o’clock news.