Almost exactly six years after the release of
Yes Lawd!
,
Anderson .Paak
and
Knxwledge
started preparing listeners for the second
NxWorries
album with the downbeat
H.E.R.
duet "Where I Go."
Paak
Bruno Mars
' glitzy
Silk Sonic
project had recently won four Grammys and at the time had two singles on high rotation at urban adult contemporary radio, so the return of the freakier and lower-profile
was unexpected. Equally surprising was seeing the full track list for
Why Lawd?
with eight additional featured appearances. Part of
's appeal was that
kept it self-contained, but
is neither crowded nor compromised by the extra voices. Like the debut, this is primarily an R&B record with
's variably frisky and lovelorn singing voice and
's warped sample-based productions as the basis.
stunts in MC mode on faintly trippy tracks like "86Sentra" and "Battlefield," contending in the former that he's still in his prime: "I just did the Super Bowl halftime show with the GOATs, why the f*ck would I wanna do a Verzuz?" Still, "Where I Go" proved to be an accurate preview of the album, as heartache abounds.
is all yearning pleas on "Daydreamin'," a slow jam that smears a deep cut from
The Clarke/Duke Project II
and adds a fiery
Jairus Mozee
guitar solo. He has never sounded wearier than on "MoveOn," his lamentations on emotional pain and the passing of time belied by a breezy, folk-tinged backdrop. In the aggrieved "KeepHer," one of many tracks with silken and dusty soul-blues rhythm guitar,
sounds like he might have a bottle of brown liquor in hand, though
Thundercat
's falsetto somewhat sweetens the moment. The album is not without humor or even humility.
admits over regal organ in "HereIAm" that he's a ne'er-do-well bachelor, confessing to his ex that he looks at her social media pages and that her younger replacement is "dumb as a brick with sh*tty music taste." There's joy in the soft-knocking "FallThru," a lovers' escape, and some absurdist shenanigans in "SheUsed," where a pitched-up
makes like the crooning Son of Lord Quas. The closest this gets to
territory is the slow-shuffling weeper "FromHere," assisted by an appearance from
October London
that evokes
Eddie Holman
, and a closing monologue from
Snoop Dogg
.
's litany of woes -- "Roll the windows down, I hope the rain hides my tears" -- ensure that his thunder is not stolen. ~ Andy Kellman