With Lyrics Born, it has always been about the bounce. Take "Callin' Out", the first single from his 2003 solo debut, Later That Day..., which introduced the MC (real name Tom Shimura) to an audience that might not have been up on his work with Lateef the Truthspeaker as half of Latyrx. Despite his dexterous, lyrically agile performance, "Callin' Out" stuck in your head as a body-rocker, with its rubbery knock overshadowing just about everything else. Over the course of three albums now, Lyrics Born has been refining that bounce, searching for a hip-hop future that remains deeply rooted in the funk, disco, and soul of the past. His latest, As U Were, brings all of this to a head, adding current pop and R&B elements to form an ebullient, commercially viable hip-hop record. But despite its ambitions, it feels less like a backpacker's idea of pulling a Love Below, and more like the natural next step from a guy who digs Chic as much as Jurassic 5.
Coming from an underground MC who made his name alongside the likes of Blackalicious and DJ Shadow, As U Were's mainstream pop lean is downright shocking. Take "We Live By the Beat", which works soul-driven horns and a strobe-lit Euro-house hook (complete with Euro-house chanteuse) into a hometown hyphy track. What looks like a mess on paper meshes convincingly on the floor. And even when these amalgamations falter, you still have to admire the ambition. One near miss is the single "Lies X 3", which has less impact than it hopes for, sounding like a Hall & Oates tune all jacked-up on Bob Fosse swagger. And maybe the Timbaland move on "I Wanna B W/U" feels a little discount, and the sci-fi prog-rock posturing on "I'm the Best (Funky Fresh in the Flesh)" a little soggy. But that still can't cloud Shimura's giddy energy. Though most of As U Were shows little interest in staying true to any one form for too long, it's easy to understand why Shimura doesn't consider "crowd-pleasing" to be a dirty phrase. He seems happy to find himself in the company of forward-thinking artists with retro-minded fundamentals, à la Janelle Monáe.
Ironically, if there is one thing holding these songs back, it's Lyrics Born himself. Shimura spits sparingly, often just to shake a little life into the imaginary crowd once the groove settles. Sometimes, you barely notice whether he's rapping or singing or kind of hanging out somewhere in between. But the more lyrically-minded endeavors lack the pop magnetism that As U Were is all about, so even the more focused head-knock stuff like "Block Bots" (boasting a nimble "B.O.B." vibe with a few goofed-out James Brown breaks thrown in for good measure) pales in comparison. Stir in some troublingly dull subject matter-- from the sluggish temptation cautionary tale "I've Lost Myself" to blandly branding pharmaceutical companies as the true pusher men of today-- and As U Were's wheels begin to spin. But then, just often enough, you'll stumble on something that sounds like Prince jamming out in a haunted house ("Pushed Aside/Pulled Apart"), or Funkadelic working out to some heavy chiptune synths ("Something Better"). And before you know it, the bounce is back.
