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, , 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 , and more like the natural next step from a guy who digs Chic as much as Jurassic 5.