Brooklyn rapper Kirk Knight begins his debut album Late Knight Special quite boldly, with a sample from Sun Ra's Space Is the Place sci-fi film. For Knight, Ra's otherworldly musings are irrelevant: He picks the sample because Madlib uses the same audio clip to end Madvillainy's absurdist "Shadows of Tomorrow". Knight's connection to the 2004 classic ends there: His narrative-driven lyrics don't resemble MF DOOM's post-modern syllabic wordplay in the slightest. But by leading with an obvious and familiar sample, he indicates to the listener where his hip-hop allegiances lie. Unlike fellow Pro Era member Joey Bada$$, Knight doesn't try to compete with his more accomplished forebears. At its best and its worst, Late Knight Special is an unassuming project.

That opening track, "Start Running", encapsulates much of its successes and shortcomings. Knight flows smoothly and competently, but hardly any notable lines emerge, and he spends much of the song simply telling the listener that he is rapping, which doesn't work without artful twists of wordplay. It's the song's production—Knight's forte—that makes "Start Running" worthwhile: The light hi-hats allude to boom bap, but Knight manages to avoid copycat '90s-worship. Throughout the album, Knight shows that although he's learned from the past, he's not living in it.

The more daring Knight gets with his production, the more interesting Late Knight Special becomes. When he cranks up the bass and ventures into the minor key, he gets more intense on the microphone and sharpens his focus. "Brokeland", for example, very much recalls Wu-Tang Clan's "C.R.E.A.M.", complete with a send-off from Knight that "everybody know that money is the root of all evil." The song is also built on an obscure Italian harpsichord sample of which RZA would surely be proud. Knight's lyrics focus on concrete details: "With the Hammer pants, I keep security cards in my sneakers." The tales from the block—which have the potential for honesty and insight—suit Knight well.

During a mid-album suite of poppier love songs ("One Knight", "Scorpio", and "Down"), Knight makes the hooks his focus. He actually has quite a knack for choruses and half-sings most of them himself. The accompanying bars, however, fail to register. As the album comes to a close with a series of deeper, more ponderous songs, the earworm hooks disappear and the beats remain relaxed, leaving Knight to hold attention with his bars. Ultimately, his Chicago guests Mick Jenkins and Noname Gypsy end up making as much, if not more, of an impression. On "Dead Friends", for instance, which also features Thundercat on bass, Knight meanders his way into a story about an older friend who had taken him under his wing; he later finds out secondhand that the friend died. It's a thoughtful sentiment, but lacks urgency. Noname, on the same track, jumps in with biblical, Billie Holiday, and Yeezus allusions in her first two lines.

Kirk Knight's rapping career is very much nascent. Before this debut, his biggest look as a rapper was probably his guest verse on Joey's 2013 "Amethyst Rockstar". It's as a producer where Knight's had plenty of opportunities to excel. He's got credits on legitimately popular songs, such as Joey's "Big Dusty". This imbalance shows through on Late Knight Special, for better and for worse. The whole thing sounds crisp and determined, but he hasn't yet showed us why he deserves to be center stage of his own productions yet.