Lyrics Born: Same !@#$ Different Day : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Remix albums rarely do anybody any good, but Same !@#$ Different Day, a mix of five new tracks and eight rejiggerings of cuts from Bay Area rapper Lyrics Born's excellent 2003 debut, Later That Day . . . , is no retread. Instead, it's an open-minded return to the rap-funk wellspring that made the original album great. Except for the DJ Shadow-produced slow jam, "Over You," the remixes rarely drag, from the horn-laden roller-skate odyssey of "Hello" to the sleek streetscape of "I'm Just Raw" to a half-dozen au courant variations on West Coast G-Funk. Blessed with an Eminem-like talent for sustained wordplay, Lyrics Born (a.k.a. Tokyo-born, Berkeley-raised Tom Shimura) mixes club-rocking command, gruff sincerity and Southern cool; he also can do world-weary sensitivity, as he displays on "I Can't Wait for Your Love." Same !@#$ feels less coherent than his debut, but any thrill-starved hip-hop fan who missed that album would do just fine to start here.