BROWN WITH BLUE SPLATTER VINYL

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 and 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 NxWorries was unexpected. Equally surprising was seeing the full track list for Why Lawd? with eight additional featured appearances. Part of Yes Lawd!'s appeal was that Paak and Knxwledge kept it self-contained, but Why Lawd? is neither crowded nor compromised by the extra voices. Like the debut, this is primarily an R&B record with Paak's variably frisky and lovelorn singing voice and Knxwledge's warped sample-based productions as the basis. Paak 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. Paak 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, Paak 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. Paak 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 Paak makes like the crooning Son of Lord Quas. The closest this gets to Silk Sonic 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. Paak's litany of woes -- "Roll the windows down, I hope the rain hides my tears" -- ensure that his thunder is not stolen. 

A1        ThankU
A2        86Sentra
A3        MoveOn
A4        KeepHer
A5        Distractions
A6        Lookin’
A7        Where I Go
A8        Daydreaming
A9        FromHere
B1        FallThru
B2        Battlefield
B3        HereIAm
B4        OutTheWay
B5        SheUsed
B6        MoreOfIt
B7        NVR.RMX
B8        DistantSpace
B9        WalkOnBy
B10        EvnMore