On his new album, View From Masada, due Tuesday, Killah Priest intends for people to "look at life" by covering new spiritual and lyrical ground.

"This time I gave 'em meat and a side of mashed potatoes," said the 29-year-old Sunz of Man rapper and Wu-Tang affiliate.

He says he aimed to keep the music edgy while imparting a dose of consciousness. "I kept it street, but I also dropped me in it, like the way I walk the street," he said. "I'm not no Martian or alien or nothing like that. I'm real, so I just tell 'em straight up how it is and what's goin' on in the world and how I see the world from my view."

Masada, Priest's new alias, stands for Mostly Analyzing Situations And Drama Artistically. Priest says it represents where he was mentally and spiritually when he was preparing for this album, the second of his solo career.

"My head was like, 'Stay focused, make sure and just let cats know I ain't no amateur at this. I been doin' it,' " he said. "The old labels tried to treat me like I was a little kid, like I didn't know what I was doing and s---, but I had to prove my point on this album. I had to prove to myself that I can do it."

Lessons In Street Life

Throughout View From Masada, Priest sprinkles his tales of hard-core street life with scriptural analogies and biblical references. "Live By The Gun" (RealAudio excerpt), opens with a mournful prayer. On "Hard Times" (RealAudio excerpt), he raps, "We go from hard time to part time/ From part time back to hard time/ That's the start of crime/ 'Til the day we see the father shine light on us/ Try and warn us/ We play the corners."

Joining Priest in "Whut Part of the Game?" (RealAudio excerpt) is Ras Kass (a fellow member of the Four Horsemen, which also includes Canibus and Kurupt), in a tirade against sell-out rappers. Kurt Gowdy, who produced the single, said he thinks the song's message will hit home with rappers.

"It's a banging record because it's true," Gowdy said. "A lot of rappers are out there portraying something they're not. Everybody wants to be 'Ice this' and 'Ice that,' but Priest is taking it to a spiritual level so more young urban people will understand."

Gowdy, who has worked with Cypress Hill, Fat Joe and LL Cool J, said working with Priest was something he's wanted to do for a long time. "I've been trying to get at Priest for the longest," he said, " because I felt that if I could do a single for him, my exposure would be there."

Saved By Hip-Hop

Priest said View is a textbook for and about the ghetto. "I wanted to get that outta me so people can look at life. Right now I'm speaking for the ghetto, for brothers that I grew up with in the projects who haven't observed the things that I've observed."

Referring to his upbringing as a "real deep experience," Priest (born Walter Reed) said his Brooklyn stomping grounds demanded respect. "You had to be live," he said. "You couldn't be corny being from where I was from. Anything you did, you had to be the best and you had to stick out. If you wore jewelry, you had to have the most jewels. It was kinda difficult, but we kept it street and we kept it hip-hop."

Priest said his music is for people like those in his neighborhood who have fallen prey to their conditions. "When you look at the word 'projects,' it's like a science project," he said. "Like when you was in school and ... [you had to observe] mice ..., you look at [them] and you examine how they react. Now, if you put a whole bunch of mice in one corner and give them one piece of cheese, they're gonna start fighting over that. That's what the projects is — on a bigger level."

Priest said many would-be victims of the projects have been saved by hip-hop. "If it wasn't for hip-hop, a lotta brothers that's rhyming probably would have been in the corner somewhere selling drugs. Not even that, they probably woulda started robbing a lotta these white folks, let alone each other."

But despite the success of hip-hop, Killah Priest admonishes big-name rappers to beware of "pimping." "I feel they did a good job by giving cats deals, but they still pimping and trying to pimp us in a way. I'm happy for the Puffys and the Master Ps and the Jay-Zs — cats who are getting control of it. But it's like when you do it, just keep the same mentality that you had when you was goin' to do it. We all being pimped in a certain way. It's how you let them pimp you. I feel that once they get you industry-minded, it's all a system anyway. It's like breaking outta the matrix."