“I take my time with it.”  These six words begin P.O.S.’s new album, We Don’t Even Live Here, and if there’s anything we know about the emcee born Stefon Alexander at this point in his career, it is that he rarely rushes, but always delivers.  On 2009′s Never Better, he blended abrasive beats, tender breakdowns, hardcore-inspired chant-back choruses, and his unique scattershot rhymes to innovate further on a sound all his own.  In the three years since that album, Stef (as his fans often call him) has hardly been slacking, releasing music with Gayngs, Marijuana Deathsquads, and his own Doomtree crew, all while steadily working on his follow-up solo record.  But as he says, despite his prolific nature, he took his time with it, and finally we have the results.  They certainly don’t disappoint.

We Don’t Even Live Here is what music sounds like when the phrase call to arms comes to simultaneously mean an appeal to throw a brick through a Ferrari window and an invitation to lean into your best friend’s embrace.  There is anger here: frustration with materialism, with blind opulence, social injustice, and rampant cultural apathy.  But there is a fierce, undeniable love as well: an anthemic, family-first devotion to representing your home, supporting your loved ones and staying loyal to your community, through everything.  In Stef’s world, these two fires are fed by the same fuel, and he expresses this forcefully over and over throughout these ten songs.  This is an album where the irreverent rallying cry of “Fuck Your Stuff” (“my whole crew’s on some shit / scuffin up your Nikes, spittin on your whip”) can exist right alongside the vulnerable moments in “How We Land” (“all of me, offered if you ask / but only if you ask / honesty could cost me all I have”).  For P.O.S., the line between these two ideas is just as razor-thin as the walls between musical genres, and just as permeable.  On this album, it becomes a given that the derisive “Bumper” chorus refrain of “they on some nonsense” can’t be followed by anything other than the more inclusive follow-up, “we on some non-stop.”   It is in the bold bear hug of that we that P.O.S. sends the listener an invitation to where he does live, welcoming us into the very family that grounds the rapper amid the world that wears on him so visibly.  In the context of this music, those two tiny letters become powerful offer: If you feel like us, then we got your back, so let’s do this.

Sonically, We Don’t Even Live Here does a good job of thrashing in the waters of P.O.S.’s quirky beatmaking while still grounding itself in the classic Doomtree sound on bangers by Cecil Otter and Lazerbeak, and also forging out into new electronic territory woven by Andrew Dawson, Gayngs/Poliça maestro Ryan Olson, and even German electro star Boyz Noize.  While songs like “Get Down” provide the danciest moments on any P.O.S. record yet, this is clearly not the same club Usher wanted some love in, but rather a dirty, grimey, Doomtree basement where everyone’s best dance move is their most instinctive one.

We Don’t Even Live Here isn’t a perfect album.  Toward the end of the record, some of the louder moments rev into abrasiveness to the point of overload, and few of these songs could ever work as background music.  It’s important to remember, though, that polish, ease, and perfection have never been an essential part of P.O.S.’s material.  Many of this album’s human flaws add to its charm rather than undermine its mission, and Stef’s demand for active listening is refreshing within the synthy-sweet gloss of today’s music.

Of course, when the chips are down, P.O.S.’s rapping takes center stage.  Where the 2011 Doomtree crew album No Kings saw the emcee finding a necessary balance between claiming the spotlight and supporting his teammates, this time Stef rocks front and center from the get-go, converting new listeners with the same trademark charm and contagious energy that has made his live shows so compelling for nearly a decade.  Lyrically, there is the familiar blurring of personal and political.  There are the lithe tongue-twisting rhyme patterns, awkward swagger, raw emotion, and splices of studio banter.  But on We Don’t Even Live Here, there are also flashes of a humble confidence that serves to remind us that four albums deep, through ten years of taking his time with it, P.O.S. has learned how to say what he means.

Preview the album here on iTunes, buy it here at Fifth Element, and check out the high octane video for “Get Down” below:

 

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