Little Brother: Getback

Little Brother's third album, Getback, opens with a typically lush beat that combines ecstatic strings and glistening piano, before a jarring burst of static ushers in a much harder groove and an incendiary Big Pooh lyric that suggests the plus-sized MC has traded in his Pete Rock albums for classic Public Enemy. It's a concise way of conveying that the vibe has changed, even though the group's first CD without longtime producer 9th Wonder largely sticks with the group's usual hyper-soul sound. The Golden Age/Native Tongues nostalgia that permeated the group's debut, The Listening, is long gone: Rappers Phonte Coleman and Big Pooh are too concerned with surviving the uncertain present to bask in the glory of the past.