At the heart of Anderson .Paak’s music has always been an emotional unburdening of exuberant proportions. It’s present in the shades of intensity his voice carries between croon and rasp, the luxurious kinetics of his funk-laden instrumentals, and his starry-eyed joie de vivre. On his fourth album, Ventura, Paak alters this blueprint by mastering the equilibrium between exactitude and ease, between vintage soul and new-school fusion.
The salt and sand of the California beach towns where Paak grew up comprise the lifeblood of his albums. Whereas last year’s insular Oxnard paid tribute to the city of his birth, Ventura is more expansive. Dr. Dre, Paak’s longtime mentor, served as executive producer on Oxnard, lending that album its heavy-hitting funk-rap skylarks, but on Ventura, Dre allows his protégé to take the reins. Paak certainly doesn’t shy away from the challenge, as the album is awash in golden timbres and spacious, full-blooded textures. It’s lush yet artfully edited, unforced yet deliberate—a far cry from the overwrought architecture that got the best of Oxnard.
In many ways, Ventura represents a return to form for Paak, as he channels the neo-soul of 2016’s Malibu, which was sorely absent from Oxnard. But while Paak was comfortable residing in the clearly defined contours of traditional verse-bridge-verse song structures on Malibu, he allows those boundaries to blur and shift here. The cinematic opener “Come Home,” which boasts a particularly nimble and clever verse from André 3000, unfolds like an overture, anchored by a choir of angelic voices and hair-raising drumrolls. Staccato trumpets puncture the disco glitz of “Reachin’ 2 Much” before, in one of the most fabulous transitions of the album, giving way to a chilled-down groove equally fit for a backyard BBQ and a dance floor.
Too many tracks on Oxnard felt as if they were carried by noteworthy features like Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar, and Q-Tip, leaving Paak as a supporting character at best. By contrast, Paak is never overshadowed on Ventura, working off a tight and balanced chemistry with his guest artists, and he embraces an endearing transparency when he treats topics as disparate as dealing with a nosy girlfriend (“You stay here too much, baby/You know it’s not your place”), reigniting a dormant love (“When you take somebody for your own/It can’t survive on history alone”), and uplifting community in the face of racism and poverty (“The people that you came with? You’re coming with me”). Throughout it all, Paak maintains an optimism that, though some might deem naïve, is undeniably infectious.
The foundations of Paak’s sound—disco, funk, ’70s soul, California G-funk—cast an air of nostalgia over his music. But he’s shrewd enough in the design and construction of his music to prevent the amalgamation of these influences from slipping into pastiche or kitsch. Although Ventura is replete with anachronisms—theatrical strings fit for Earth, Wind & Fire (“Reachin’ 2 Much”), nightclub-ready slap bass (“Jet Black”), quiet storm (“Make It Better”)—Paak fuses the old school and new school seamlessly, producing a sonic palette that hasn’t quite been replicated by any of his contemporaries. Ventura serves as a reminder of the magic that can result from looking to the past to inform the future.
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