Lyrics Born - As U Were

Stumbling through a messy blend of 70's funk, 80's disco and 00's commercial pop, Lyrics Born's latest tries too hard to produce something different. As Simon Jones writes, he would've been better As He Was.

At what age is it appropriate to start blaming your missteps on a mid-life crisis? What age counts as mid-life for an MC? For twenty years 38-year old Lyrics Born has made a decent fist at the hip-hop game. He has produced great collaborations with everyone from Lateef the Truth Speaker to R.L Burnside and his impressive debut Later That Day won him a stack of praise in 2003. Unfortunately for Señor Born and the rest of us he's been playing catch-up ever since.

Following on from his patchy funk effort Everywhere at Once, As U Were sees Born wade aimlessly through a sheen of 70's funk, 80's disco and 00's commercial pop with little to show for his efforts. The addition of Sam Sparrow, Francis and the Lights and Trackademicks gives props to a new direction, but Born’s rhymes and neo-soul man shtick feels out of place in these surroundings and he comes unstuck more times than not.

Ill-chosen beats and messy instrumentation mar most tracks on the album, often overwhelming Born’s previously distinctive vocals. Kontrol Phreak is a Beverly Hills Cop soundtrack castaway, its disco cheese combo as good for Born as The Nutty Professor was for Eddie Murphy’s career. We Live by the Beat's wall of synth drowns out his vocals while his falsetto efforts on Lies and Oh Baby sound labored and whiney. Gift of Gab makes a welcome cameo on Pillz but his stab at America’s pharmaceutical dependency is undermined by the ridiculous chorus ‘Poppin' Poppin' Poppin', PILLZ PILLZ’ and the track becomes another 'what could have been'.

Born's vocals have always been his strength but too often here he sounds either a shadow of his former self and a poor imitation of his contemporaries. The best moments come when Lyrics Born actually sounds like Lyrics Born - I Wanna B W/U rediscovers his old rasp and energy while the rose-tinted Something Better is one of the few tracks to find the right balance between synth and rap.

There's just enough here to tide over long term fans until Lyrics Born tours again and potentially breathes some life into this material, but everyone else should steer clear. Newcomers would be far better off checking out Later That Day or anything else he recorded pre-2003 to see what Lyrics Born can actually do when he's got a thing on his mind.