In Guy, Leave It to Riley *** 1/2 GUY “The Future” <i> Uptown/MCA</i>

By now, anyone with more than a passing interest in black music knows that Teddy Riley is one of its most remarkable young talents. At age 23, the leader of the trio Guy has cranked out a list of funk classics longer than your arm, from Bobby Brown’s “My Prerogative” to Keith Sweat’s “I Want Her” to Kool Moe Dee’s “How Ya Like Me Now.” He’s spawned a host of imitators in recent years, but as he dryly observes on one of this album’s tracks, “Followers bite . . . but they can’t copyright.”

Any project that the Harlem-reared Riley is connected with would be worth a listen. “The Future” is no exception, even though it sounds as if it was conceived by a brash, brainy kid with a bulging bank account and too much confidence to feel that he had anything to prove to anybody at this point in his burgeoning career.

Leave it to Riley, though, to dream up something besides your garden variety jams on “Her” and “Wanna Get With You,” two of this album’s most assertive, in-your-face, dance-floor gems. Even when you’re tempted to accuse him of giving his best grooves to other artists, it’s still hard to deny that Riley probably has more musical innovations at his command than Brown, Sweat and Dee combined.

Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor) to five (a classic).