Consumer Guide Album

Black Thought: Streams of Thought Vol. 1 [Human Re Sources EP, 2018]
Even though the Roots frontman's first 2018 EP was clearly a signal that the hiatus following his band's 2014 . . . And Then You Shoot Your Cousin was turning permanent, I somehow still believed that was Questlove on drums when it was actually 9th Wonder soul samples impossible to identify without a scorecard. And there's plenty more stuffed into these five tracks, 17 minutes that make room for guest slots by sturdy point guard Rapsody on the widely informed "Dostoyevsky" and loquacious jeremiah Styles P on the far-reaching "Making a Murderer." It's never more exciting than on a retrospective lead track situated "Back when Burning Man was blacks in Birmingham." But it never bogs down. A-