Toronto emcee and Backburner member Wordburglar has been at this for a while, developing a reputation as a wordsmith with a knack for punchlines. As much as he’s been working, it’s been three years since his last solo album, Rapplicable Skills. Now he comes back with another classic, Rhyme Your Business.

Wordburglar has been nothing if not consistent over the years, and he delivers everything you want out of a Wordburglar album on Rhyme Your Business. From the jump he’s hitting you with some classic East Coast boom bap filled with nerdy references, clever punchlines, and social observations. With production from MisterE, Coins, Beatmason, Timbuktu, and Fresh Kils, cuts by Uncle Fester and DJ Irate, there are a lot of familiar faces putting together funky boom bap beats and scratching that third heat onto the album. On the mic, you get a mix of usual and unusual guests, with Birdapres and Esoteric joining the more familiar cast of characters of Mega Ran, Chokeules, Jesse Dangerously, More or Les, Savilion, Timbuktu, and Touch. While they all add some fun and variety to the album, Rhyme Your Business is all about having fun with Wordburglar. Burg manages to have a lot of fun and holds his own on the mic with the best of them, all while being a completely unashamed nerd, which is why his fans love him. He can drop all sorts of hip hop jokes and talk trash on a song like “Mic Heckla,” and then turn around and drop a completely earnest song about his love for comic books with a song like “Living Between Wednesdays.” While he never gets overtly political on the album, Burg does drop enough punchlines, especially on “Versonality,” to let you know where he stands as he takes swipes at people like Melania Trump and her claim to be concerned about cyber-bullying. Perhaps the most interesting part of the album, at least to a nerd like myself, is Wordburglar’s two songs devoted to the physicality of media, “Rental Patient,” and “Used Crate of Mind,” which talk about his love of VHS and vinyl, respectively, and how we engage with movies and music differently as physical objects as opposed to digital consumption.

Rhyme Your Business isn’t fixing what isn’t broke. Wordburglar has been doing this a while now, and he knows what he’s about and how to entertain listeners. This album is fun and engaging, and he does a great job of mixing in all sorts of nuggets of wisdom in between punchlines to make for a more complete listening experience than you might realize at first.