There’s a lot to admire about The Unorthodox Drummer: the First Assemblage, starting with Jamal Batiste’s nerve and ambition. The album presents Batiste as a hip-hop impresario, which makes sense. In 2008, so of the best drummers are programming beats instead of playing them, and the physical challenge of making a groove is only half the challenge. Batiste is still a better drummer than beat writer, but he’s thinking a modern game.

In the contemporary hip-hop tradition, Batiste introduces a number of rappers and vocalists to the world, and he’s the architect of it all. That presentation of the artist as the conceptualist is also smart, and he embraces the clatter and unnatural sounds that animate rap. Now if he would conceptualize more memorable pieces. The instrumentals show off a guy who’s having fun playing—actually, who’s having fun all over this album—but someone who still needs to figure out stronger hooks, and the same goes for his hip-hop.

In his liner notes, Batiste refers to Duchamp, Dubuffet and the 1961 “The Art of Assemblage” show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. He sees the post-modern in music today and makes connections between art movements. At the same time, he embraces New Orleans and hip-hop tropes; now if he can just embrace material on par with his ambition.