Bumbalo

Bumbalo’s club-friendly, self-proclaimed “space-age-crunk-hyphy” screams “Bay Area.” For better or worse, the rapper’s long-awaited debut disc plays like a locale-specific biography, sometimes missing the mark with clichés, but succeeding overall with energetic, lyrically complex anthems and crisp production. Standouts include the low-down and gutterific “Hyphy Cat,” the synthesized string plucks and piano stabs of “Step Ya Game Up,” and “Slap Yer System,” which brings back the funky robot voice presumed dead since the ’80s. Fortunately, generic tracks about gettin’ paid and pimpin’ don’t dominate the album, and even “Celebrity Buds,” the obligatory ode to weed, leaves us with a classic line: “I got a Paris Hilton strain / look good as hell / It get you high / but it got a little fishy smell.”