The longtime independent, get-it-on-your-own spirit of the Bay Area hip-hop scene has made it a region full of underdog stories. In the 1990s, Vallejo’s Mac Dre overcame the police and local government’s use of rap lyrics to pin unproven conspiracy charges on him, helping to pioneer the stripped-down slaps of the hyphy movement when he finally got out of prison. More than a decade later, Berkeley’s Lil B stood up to East Coast gatekeeping when he responded to a Joe Budden swipe with “T Shirts & Buddens,” one of the most ridiculous diss tracks ever: “Bet you still jack off with your buttcheeks out, listening to Mood Muzik.”

Now in that same lineage is Ovrkast., the Oakland-raised dual-threat who has been unexpectedly in the news lately for being sued by the almighty Outkast and their people for “improper, willful, unauthorized, and illegal use of the nearly identical name.” It’s far from the first time something like this has happened in rap, but the power imbalance has made it feel like an institution is trying to strip away an artist’s identity for a couple of bucks. This is a dispute that Ovrkast. had been quietly dealing with for around a year before it went public, that was on his mind as he put together his heady, through-the-fire new album, STRIKING.

The album reminds me a little of post-GKMC projects with heavy hearts that land light—I’m thinking of Saba’s Few Good Things and Mick Jenkins’ The Water[s]. It’s a collaborative (lots of friends and musicians he met at writing camps pass through) and careful character study with a side of shit-talking that uses all of the life he’s lived as a source of motivation. The album’s opening lines, spoken by a Bay Area man-about-town Ant Bankx (not the one from the Dangerous Crew), feels like the unofficial mantra: “Profound growth/They don’t tell you that shit take a lot.” It’s not the most original thought, but Ovrkast. is a sharp observer and memoirist, able to drop you into full-fledged scenes from his past. On “ACTRANSIT / LEMME AT EM,” it’s a montage of hectic bus rides—dudes getting jumped and robbed—told in a casual but stylishly choppy flow as if he’s underlining the ordinariness of all the crazy shit that used to just be another day. Similar is the gently melancholic “STATIC” (dueted in parts with Flatbush singer Nali) where he seems to be trying to nudge himself to remember that he’s built too tough a skin to let new problems change him.

Not every track is so serious. “Wata” is breezy Northern California stunting with out-of-towner Niontay sliding and bouncy Angelo LeRoi drums that could fit on a P-Lo tape. Ovrkast.’s monotonous voice wears thin on “Heroes & Villains,” but the comic-book scenarios of Ben Reilly really pop: “Sittin’ for hours, scour the city from atop of a tower.” There’s some De La Soul Is Dead-style animosity to “KNOCK,” a music industry roast of sorts with Mavi and Samara Cyn. Missing from STRIKING is that extra layer—maybe a satirical bite, or a louder imagination—that would elevate the album beyond easy-listening music from a hip-hop everyman into something more contentious.

In the past, Ovrkast.’s largely self-produced beats, featuring wonky programmed drums and charred samples (especially on 2023’s RESET! EP), brought that Ohbliv-inspired psychedelia. But on STRIKING, that lived-in dust is cleaned up with the addition of live instruments. The jazz trumpet riffs of “STATIC” and the rumbling bassline of “WINDO” aren’t bad, just generic and stuffy. They don’t say much about him other than this is a capital-A album. Even the samples, such as the soulful hums on “Hopecore!,” don’t have the wear, possibly because a bunch of them are sourced from the kind of sample libraries that record original music to reproduce the sounds of vintage soul and gospel so artists don’t have to deal with the strenuous and expensive sample clearing process. These professional sample makers are only going to become more popular in hip-hop as sample crackdowns intensify on streaming, but using them feels almost against the point of sampling, where the decisions of what to flip—even if you use it in a way that’s unrecognizable, or unimaginatively basic—are part of the artistic statement.

It’s a nitpick that’s probably unfair to get on Ovrkast. about, more about the state of music than STRIKING. I can’t even blame him for taking this shortcut. He’s already getting screwed over by the corporate powers of music; why wouldn’t he do his best to avoid getting caught up in another situation? I thought of that when I listened to “PANE,” where he raps “It’s blood dripping off the hands of the IDF” with the “F” halfway bleeped out. It might be the angriest moment on the album in multiple ways. A subtle critique of the surveillance musicians are facing, a slick joke aimed at the forces out there trying to control how artists present themselves. You can always count on a rapper from the Bay to hold it down.