To his fans, the rapper known as Ol’ Dirty Bastard was a misunderstood genius who invented a new language to describe the dark side of life. To his detractors, he represented everything wrong with hip-hop culture. The latter group will find much to advance their cause in “Osirus” (JC Records/Sure Shot Recordings), a rush-released collection of the final recordings by the man born Russell Jones, who was found dead of a drug overdose in a Manhattan recording studio last November.

Ol’ Dirty Bastard, who boasted a long list of aliases including Big Baby Jesus, Dirt McGirt, and Unique Ason, rose to prominence as a member of the Staten Island-based Wu-Tang Clan, a kung fu-obsessed conglomeration of nine rappers that also included Jones’s cousins Robert Diggs (aka RZA) and Gary Grice (aka GZA). Easily the wildest of the free-wheeling Wu-Tang, ODB rhymed about the carnival of sex, drugs, and violence that was his life, half-rapping and half-singing, in a hoarse holler that sounded like Bill Cosby gargling gravel.

ODB spent much of the latter part of his 35 years in and out of prison and the hospital, engaging in such tabloid-worthy behavior as rescuing a 4-year-old girl trapped underneath a crashed car and storming the stage at the 1998 Grammy awards when the Wu-Tang lost the Best Rap Album Grammy to Puff Daddy. He allegedly fathered 13 children and recorded two hit solo albums (1995’s “Return to the 36 Chambers” and 1999’s “Nigga Please”).Yet he was unable to shake the crack addiction that ultimately led to his death.

The dauntingly lengthy “Osirus” was allegedly completed a week before Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s overdose, but it seems like it was cobbled together in the immediate aftermath as a quick cash-in. If so, the blame lays squarely on the shoulders of Russell Jones’s mother, Cherry Jones, and his manager, Jarred Weisfeld, who scrambled to form JC (Jarred Cherry) Records in order to release this album, as well as a forthcoming DVD and clothing line.

Of the 18 tracks, two are remixes, two consist of little more than beat boxing wizard Rahzel’s breathtaking mouth tricks, and five feature ODB on only a verse or chorus while guest rappers – including Rhymefest, Black Rob, Drag-On. and Wu associate Cappadonna – steal the show. That leaves nine full Ol’ Dirty Bastard songs.

On the bouncing, piano-driven single “Pop Shots” (produced by superstar knob-twiddler DJ Premier) and the sprightly jitterbug “Dirty Dirty,” he’s as clownish and unhinged as ever. “Who Can Make It Happen Like Dirt” and “If Y’All Want War” are unintentionally hilarious caricatures of thuggery; he comes across about as threatening as a drunk teddy bear. But the wit and genuine love for wordplay that made ODB’s past work so appealing is absent here, lost in textbook macho, sexist cliches, and maddening amounts of repetition.

He sleepwalks through the laid-back funk of “Don’t Stop Ma” and is swallowed up by the fat-bottomed, marching-band crunk of “Down South.” The horny slow jam “P—y Keep Calling” is less sexy than pathological as ODB moans like a cat in heat and declares “I’m a sex fiend addict!” over and over again. It is the sound of a man drowning inside himself.