Citizen Cope

Like G. Love, Citizen Cope is a musical mixologist, fusing sluggish hip-hop beats with mellow piano melodies and new-school blues with easy-listening pop. On his debut album, Cope--née Clarence Greenwood, former DJ for the rap group Basehead--sounds at times like both a younger, drawling Sting and a folksy Wyclef Jean as he sings over slow, loose, loungy instrumentals. Though his music is a patchwork of breezy styles, Cope's lyrics tackle some serious subjects. "Contact" confronts the hypocrisy of police profiling, while "200,000 (in Counterfeit 50 Dollar Bills)" details the work of a shifty middle-aged hustler. Cope tells stories about crazy women ("Mistaken ID") and lost souls with short fuses ("Appetite (for Lightin' Dynamite)"), and even fantasizes about the musician's fight with the stay pure ("Salvation"), tucking a gritty street realism between the rosy rhythms dancing through these 13 songs. --Jennifer Maerz