“We Are the People,” the 6th track on Renard Poché’s 4U 4Me, samples Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 1963 “I Have A Dream” speech in Washington, D.C. This is quite a statement to make on a funk record. Stepping to the front from his usual spot flanking Allen Toussaint’s stage band, Poché does not mean to suggest that he has somehow struggled to be freed from his role as a sideman, but 4U 4Me operates nonetheless as the guitarist’s chance to explore his own musical territory. He takes firm control of the expedition, featuring his own work over an impressive range. Poché performs on “guitar, bass, drums, percussion, keyboards, trombone, trumpet, flute, vocals, raps, talk box and spoken word.”

Instrumentally and lyrically, Poché’s solo CD updates the familiar sounds and themes of 1970s soul and funk. With one musician playing so many of the instruments, though, the performances tend away from the organic feeling of a funk band and towards the more polished studio sound of hip-hop records. 4U 4Me’s dominant rhythmic tendency is towards nasty guitar grooves that come straight from the P-Funk vernacular, and “What’s The Flavor,” featuring New Orleans rappers the Alley Rats, goes so far as to name-check Tower of Power’s “Oakland Stroke” and pay conscious homage to 1970s funk styles from Philly, Chitown and Motown. Some of Poché and his guests’ spoken word owe a debt to the Last Poets. 4U 4Me pushes consistently into the present, though. Its roots are in the classics, but it’s always mindful of the trends pushing urban funk music forward.