Lost Change

Critical reception

Matt Conaway of Allmusic said the following about the album: "One of the early volumes in BBE's ambitious beat-suite series, will.i.am's Lost Change is a solid extension of the movement, cozily nestling between Jay Dee's "Welcome to Detroit", a more rhyme-orientated opus, and Pete Rock's Petestrumentals, a distinctly jazzy, instrumental-based endeavor. Though will has taken the instrumental-based series and put his own stamp on it, that stamp still contains occasional hues of Black Eyed Peas' early organic stylings - "Ev Rebahdee" featuring Planet Asia. Yet, BBE's progressive format frees him up to dabble in a menagerie of musical styles. And he's up to the challenge, as Lost Change fuses together aspects of jazz, electronica, funk, Caribbean, and trip-hop rhythms. While the straight-up rhyming tracks border on sublime "I Am" to humdrum "Money" featuring Huck Fynn, Oezlem, and Horn Dogs, it's the instrumental format where he truly flourishes. Showing a true knack for experimentation, the album leisurely darts back and forth between the reggae-scented "Possessions," "Lost Change", which coalesces jazzy horns, with junkyard band riffing, and the hazy electronic fuzz of "Thai Arrive," which unfolds like a Radiohead track. Similarly, "Lay Me Down" has the potential to be a break-out hit, as will's infectious snare claps and blissful horn snippets provide a cooled-out platform for Terry Dexter's soulful vocal scatting. On "Control Tower," will inserts a vocal clip that states, "I'm on the brink of a great achievement." A sophisticated and musically enthralling endeavor that still manages to be accessible, Lost Change does an admirable job of implementing a host of different styles, without losing the listener in the process."