Blue Scholars

On OOF!, the latest offering from Blue Scholars, the Left coast, left-of-centre outfit try to cover a range of emotions, from angry to introspective to playful. And more often than not, they fail. No matter the subject matter, MC Geologic comes with the same A-B-A-B rhyme scheme, the same vaguely monotonous tone and the same slow, steady one-two march of a flow, whether he's talking about coolin' with his crew ("Cruz") or expressing his frustrations born out of moving from Hawaii to the American mainland ("HI-808"). What saves OOF! from the depths of mediocrity is the production work of Sabzi. He veers from electro-hop on the up-tempo, club-friendly "New People" and the ultra-quirky "HI-808" to organic funk on "Coo," making it all blend effortlessly. OOF! is sort of listenable but intensely disappointing because it could have been a great album if Geologic had figured out how to vary his flow.