Lord Newborn is the collaboration between hip hop-ish instrumentalists Tommy Guerrero, Money Mark, and Shawn Lee. When I first heard of the collaboration, I couldn’t help but feel like this was a natural gathering, and my hankering was soon proved to be correct.

The three travel a musical landscape that combines, blues, funk, dub, jazz, Latin, and hip hop stylings in a way that is completely comprehensive. Of the three, Guerrero is the musician I’m most familiar with, and his guitar-playing is quite superb, but in true collaborative fashion, it doesn’t overpower the album.

For that matter, I don’t think any one aspect is overwhelming. It’s a blending of styles and instruments that has the song and the music in its best interests. Sometimes guitar is carrying the melody, sometimes its organ, sometimes a harmonica or a flute, whatever is working at the moment. While there’s not any one moment that will make you sit up and say “Wow!”, there is a lot of great musical ideas being exchanged here. It’s an album that requires a little patience, but rewards repeated listening.