A rebirth with a bit of revenge

Q-Tip

“The Renaissance”

(Universal Motown)

* * * 1/2

Q-Tip’s 2003 solo album, “Kamaal the Abstract,” was never released by Arista, which doubted its commercial appeal. That decision touched off a period in which the Queens, N.Y., native jumped from label to label in the middle of creating new work. Now he returns with his second official solo album, “The Renaissance,” a casually complex, brilliantly executed work of neo-soul made for the street philosopher.

The former de facto frontman of the landmark ‘90s hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest immediately dispenses with legend, rapping wearily in his trademark nasal flow, “I’m not a deity / I’m far from perfect, see,” on the opening track, “Johnny Is Dead.”

Though he gripes that fans are always bringing up Tribe, “The Renaissance” is a showcase for Q-Tip’s cool consciousness. The trait has made him one of hip-hop’s most admired MCs -- even when chiding a girlfriend who cheated on “You,” he’s reflective and tender.

Norah Jones, channeling her inner Nelly Furtado, appears on the bright and smooth “Life Is Better,” and “We Fight, We Love,” with Raphael Saadiq, is one of the album’s standout tracks, a sophisticated take on a complicated relationship made even more so by the man fighting in Iraq.

Kamaal Fareed, the name that Q-Tip took in the mid-’90s after converting to Islam, is at the helm here, but like a good actor, he’s knows how to draw power even when he’s not letting the rhymes go. It’s a renaissance with redemption and humility but maybe also, if the adage about success is true, a touch of sweet revenge.

-- Margaret Wappler

Emphasizing music, not words

Brad Paisley

“Play”

(Arista Nashville)

* * * 1/2

Brad Paisley might be one of contemporary country’s master wordsmiths, but on his fifth album, he hardly says a word. With “Play,” a largely instrumental collection, Paisley shows off his jaw-dropping musical chops. Despite the fret board fireworks, this is an honest love letter to the art of making music.

Paisley covers an impressively broad stylistic range that includes the ghost-surfers-in-the-sky vibe of “Turf’s Up,” the hard Texas blues of “Playing With Fire” and the sweet balladry of “Kim,” a wordless love song for his wife. He might be out of his league vocally in his duet with B.B. King on one of the blues great’s signature tunes; both still manage to “Let the Good Times Roll” anyway.

He also offers up salutes to guitar hero Les Paul and one of his own mentors, Buck Owens. The pairing with Owens might be the album’s highlight, a posthumous duet that niftily quotes Buck’s great country instrumental “Buckaroo,” then retools his 1964 song “Hello Trouble” on its way to completing a latter-day recording its composer never finished.

Country radio will want to jump all over “Start a Band,” a duet with Keith Urban channeling the joy of strumming in the company of like-minded buds, but only true guitar geeks will be able to sort out who’s playing what on “Cluster Pluck.” It’s a six-stringed summit meeting among Paisley, James Burton, Vince Gill, Albert Lee, John Jorgenson, Brent Mason, Redd Volkaert and Steve Wariner.

-- Randy Lewis

The simple pleasures of song

Little Joy

“Little Joy”

(Rough Trade)

* * 1/2

Little Joy, a new band featuring the Strokes’ drummer Fabrizio Moretti with Binki Shapiro and Rodrigo Amarante, is named after an Echo Park bar notorious for encouraging countless lost weekends among the neighborhood’s coterie of musicians. So it’s fitting that the band’s debut album of slight and easygoing Caribbean-indie seems tailor-made for easing a tousle-headed rocker out of a Sunday afternoon hangover.

“Little Joy’s” pleasures are appropriately small and fleeting, but there are plenty of them. There’s a bit of Devendra Banhart’s assimilated Tropicalia on “No One’s Better Sake,” and Amarante’s crooner’s tenor is wrapped in a fuzzy Buddy Holly reverb that makes the record feel like an unexpected crate-digging find.

For such an unassuming album, the production is unexpectedly crafty. The band sneaks bits of doo-wop harmonies and odd percussion in the margins that can be enjoyed or ignored at your leisure.

Little Joy’s charmingly lazy songwriting makes no gesture at becoming anything beyond an excellent dinner-party soundtrack. But in these trying times for art and political life, such warm-hearted mood music will at least make your headaches go away.

-- August Brown