I wouldn't call myself a particularly huge fan of hip-hop in the last decade, and Q-Tip's new album, The Renaissance, just missed crossing the barrier into the group of recent albums that actually made a positive mark.

These albums, including Deltron 3030, the 2000 collaboration between Del Tha Funkee Homosapien and producer Dan the Automator, or OutKast's trip-funk masterpiece Aquemini, for example, show the genre is still moving forward and innovating as much as it did in the 1980s and early '90s.

That is when jazz-influenced pioneers A Tribe Called Quest ruled the world, and before hip-hop was inundated with Auto-Tune, pointless remixes and pop/R&B slant.

Since Tribe disbanded in 1998, frontman Q-Tip has kept a relatively low profile. He penetrated the rap world with his hits "Vivrant Thing" and "Breathe and Stop" directly after the breakup and then followed it up with Kamaal the Abstract, which was deemed unreleasable and was never officially sold to the public.

After a few Tribe reunion shows, a guest stint on R.E.M's Around the Sun album and an appearance in Spike Lee's She Hate Me, Q-Tip is finally back with The Renaissance.

To put it simply, the album's a real head-scratcher.

It shows moments of genius, like when Tribe's trademark jazz piano flourishes come trickling into the end of verses in "Johnny is Dead" and "Life is Better," or when "Gettin Up" flows right into the turntable theatrics of "Official."

But the album, produced almost entirely by Q-Tip himself, falls into the trap so many releases from respectable hip-hop artists have gotten in recently -- letting smooth keyboards and syrupy choruses bring down an exceptional groove.

Case in point is the song "We Fight/We Love," which is about a man missing his loved one while away at war. Q-Tip's flow and story in the verses is outstanding, but by the time Raphael Saadiq's croon comes in the chorus, along with a 1970s sitcom-sounding electric piano-based chord progression, it doesn't substantiate into something that far removed from a John Legend or Alicia Keyes song.

For the most part, Q-Tip's lyrics struggle to rise above the drum machines, punchy bass, Wurlitzers and electric guitar (courtesy of Kurt Rosenwinkel). While his ever-flawless flow is still untouchable by today's standards, he disappointingly does not cover much lyrical ground, sticking to bland R&B refrains like "at the end of it all, it was you" and "life is better now that I found you."

He finds himself in somewhat of a paradox: when there's too much music going on, it's hard to focus on the lyrics, but when the music drops out, like at the beginning of "Dance on Glass," his surprisingly uninspiring lyrics (i.e. "the bell has rung because the time is here/we gotta change it around and put our things in gear") come through.

The album works best when Q-Tip messes with conventional hip-hop song structure, adding elongated intros or sometimes just busting right into the opening verse. The one song that really breaks through the pack is (coincidentally?) the one that Q-Tip did not produce. The six-minute "Move," produced by the late J Dilla, completely changes gears halfway through to focus on a creepy Jackson 5 sample, and is the album's pure centerpiece.

J Dilla also gets a shout-out on the album's forward-looking closer, "Shaka," along with Q-Tip's father. Early versions of the song featured a sample from a speech by President-elect Barack Obama, but it was ultimately not cleared for the final release.

Two talented guest artists also fall flat. Norah Jones isn't exactly convincing singing about how "hip-hop is playing again and it's banging" in "Life is Better," and D'Angelo came out of whatever cave he's been hiding in the past eight years for a few wasted lines in "Believe," another anthem of positivity that ultimately goes nowhere.

Q-Tip's beats aren't all saccharine though; The Stevie Wonder-sampling drum-and-bass groove of "Manwomanboogie," and the addictive beat in "Won't Trade" are top-notch. The spacey, stoned-out funk jam "You" ends up being both the catchiest and most experimental song on the album.

Despite a handful of strong moments, Q-Tip's return to the mainstream hip-hop scene is disappointing in the end, maybe because of his previous strong work in the past two decades. Assuming he follows through with the Nigel Godrich collaboration as planned, the British "sixth member of Radiohead" likely won't allow Q-Tip to again fall back on the wimped-out, VH1-ready beats that have taken over the airwaves this last decade.

Sounds like: Lupe Fiasco

Download: "Move," "You"

Grade: B-