.Paak is back. It's been two years since the 32-year-old rapper/singer/drummer/producer released his critically acclaimed album Malibu, and Anderson .Paak has become more and more of a household name in genre-bending hip hop/R&B. In November, .Paak dropped his third studio album Oxnard, named after his Southern California hometown. Much like its title, the album looks back at .Paak’s roots, and each song calls out to the different influences that have joined forces to form his eclectic style and musical identity.

Oxnard brings together a range of artists and styles so broad it’s almost hard to believe. Without hesitation, the album drifts from textured neo-soul tracks to brash, hard-hitting rap songs to G-funk grooves that sound like they stepped out of Long Beach in 1993. These seemingly incompatible sounds are woven together fearlessly - and it works perfectly. Oxnard is never on the same stylistic note for more than a few minutes.

While this might be major artistic leap for another musician, it's seems almost a step backwards for .Paak. His first two albums drew from the same catalogue of musical influences, but they mixed genres together on a more intimate and fundamental level. Throughout Malibu and Venice, .Paak would throw multiple genres together within individual songs. The result was an entirely unique and unheard sound, as genres weren’t just placed next to each other but were fused with one another. In a way, .Paak was inventing new genres by mixing old ones, making each song dynamic and inventive. On Oxnard, however, these genres are separated by song, each subscribing to one particular musical style. “Mansa Musa,” for example, is strictly a head-baning rap song, while “Anywhere” follows the G-funk blueprint as closely as possible. While Oxnard does feature an impressive array of musical styles, the actual implementation of those styles proves underwhelming to .Paak’s potential as a songwriter.

Oxnard boasts contributions from artists ranging from Dr. Dre to J. Cole to BJ The Chicago Kid to Kadhja Bonet, the result of which is yet another one of .Paak’s mind-boggling amalgamation of voices that somehow still fit seamlessly together on a single record.

The problem? The musical agendas of these artists tend to hijack Oxnard’s potential to be unique. Features like Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Q-Tip, and Kendrick Lamar are all artists who have made a name for themselves by bringing other genres to hip hop, like jazz and funk. But rather than using their talents to develop his own creative vision, .Paak merely adopts their individual brands of genre-bending. Genuine ingenuity takes a backseat on Oxnard, as .Paak limits himself to mimicking experiments in genre mixing that have already been tested. The appeal of .Paak’s music has always been that he didn’t sound remotely like anyone else – the way he synthesized his musical influences was entirely unique, and it produced sounds that had never been heard before. But this is all lost on Oxnard. On “Cheers” with Q-Tip, he adds jazz to the song exactly the way A Tribe Called Quest would. On “Tints,” he and Kendrick rap over a funky instrumental that could have been on To Pimp A Butterfly.

.Paak used to sound like nobody else, but on Oxnard he sounds just like Kendrick, Dr. Dre, or Q-Tip. Oxnard could have allowed these artists to add another layer of depth to .Paak’s musical style, but instead it serves as a showcase for music we are already familiar with. Oxnard is an incredibly fun and vibrant album, but by the standards that Anderson .Paak has set for his own music, it falls short, as ingenuity is sacrificed for simulation.