2.5 of 5 paws

Why do we care? Well, we care, because "What's Up Fatlip?" might just be one of the top five rap tunes of all times, possessing a vulnerability, sense of humor and storytelling prowess hard to earn in one four-minute track (fire up the iTunes, it's worthy of your 99 pence). Fatlip lays his everyday troubles out for inspection, and we can't help but feel for the cat, especially since he's giving us the kind of great rap song that should entitle its writer to a life beyond "has-been MC, on a label that's unstable."

So when rumblings of a tour and a much-delayed full-length album emerged from the Fatlip camp earlier this year, it was the underground hip-hop equivalent of Axl pinning a release date on Chinese Democracy. Had Fatlip finally come up with enough worthy tracks to surround the seemingly untoppable "What's Up"? Had all the years off finally paid off?

For a casual hip-hop fan, Fatlip's debut LP The Loneliest Punk is a passably heady nod to Native Tongues-style looseness.

But to those of us who've sat on our hands for the last few years, it's a nasty little disappointment, an OK work by a much more than OK artist that fails to deliver on the promise of its half-decade-old lead single.

Sonically, The Loneliest Punk is completely underwhelming -- melted Pharcyde funk meets some 2001-era Dr. Dre copping and a lot of sloppy R&B. With some serious beats, it seems as though Fatlip could write some real songs.

But on The Loneliest Punk the hooks just don't stick. "Fat Leezy" finds Lip amicably warbling self-tributes, but most of the rest cliff dive out of the short-term memory.

When Fatlip rhymes, he rhymes smart, and Lip's goofy charm is in full effect here, even if it can take some serious concentration to pick up on what he's trying to say.

But smart verses alone can't carry the weight of these slapped-together songs, and because his complaints are so small -- writer's block, being broke -- after a while, his supposed vulnerability smacks of whining.

And when "What's Up Fatlip?" comes on next-to-last, it's a nagging reminder of how good Fatlip can be, and how he hasn't come up with anything that really even belongs on the same album as that one genius track.

No, none of these songs can compare with "What's Up Fatlip?" Not a lot of songs can.

But with all that time to himself, you would've hoped Fatlip could've brought a little more to The Loneliest Punk.