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Harder Than It Looks

Black music for white people, just like Screamin' Jay Hawkins says. Rock

'n'

roll is a pretty mixed-up thing, and in these multicultural nineties, it's as

confused as ever. Yeah It's That Easy, G. Love's latest and best,

brings that

confusion right to the surface: He's a light-skinned rapper who substitutes

the archetype of the bluesman for hip-hop culture while maintaining the

beats

and rhymes. Er, well, that's what he used to do. On this new one, he struts

and sounds like a roots rock combo more than ever.

That's not roots rock as in academic, has-been music trying to sound like it

was made 20 years ago. Yeah It's That Easy is full of hipster sway

and modern attitude, but it was done with real instruments and was

recorded to sound

fresh, energetic, and, well, old. Compared with modern R&B, which slaps

computer-tuned vocals over rehashed samples and cranks out hit singles,

the concept of Yeah It's That Easy is exhilarating.

By and large, it works. The songs are catchy. The first single, "Stepping

Stones," is a definite grabber, and the slick and cacophonous "Recipe" is

even better. The drum structures that were so skeletal on his

earlier albums are now much fuller, mostly because the songs are so

much more melodic. Between G. Love's singsong rapping and

guitar playing, Dr. John's keyboards, and the more-than-solid backbeat

provided by Special Sauce (Jim Prescott and Jeffrey Clement), the songs

abound in radio-friendly tunefulness.

The songs are strung together by G. Love's vocals, yet they've got

impressive

breadth. The Philly soul component is now firmly in place and threatens to

overshadow the bluesman of G. Love's first few records. Although

Yeah It's

That Easy is no Backstabbers, it's got plenty of the same full

and mellow overtones -- as on "Willow Tree" and "Take You There" -- to

say nothing of sass. There's still plenty of juke-joint raunch, too; the

harmonica solo on "You Shall See" is as threatening as the lyrics.

If there's a fault to G. Love's latest incarnation, it's the simplistic

worldview that creates a frat-boy vibe. The title track mutters about "social

contracts," race, and identity, but it ends with little more than a

restatement of Rodney King's "Why can't we all just get along?" The

Casanova

smoothness that peppers the love songs is more macho posturing than

libido-charged seduction, and the references to blunts and basketball on

"I-76" -- to say nothing of rhyming "Bob Marley" with "day" -- just seem

childish. The album closer, a sweet and sappy number about old friends, is

just the thing for those lonely nights in the freshman dorm.

OK, save the intellectualizing for the academics -- though Yeah ItÕs That

Easyhas a retro sound, it's roots rock music for right here, right now.

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