Canto-pop may be criticised for having only three chords and just 10 performers, but at least it draws a clear distinction between which song is whose.

How do you credit Ludacris for the few good tracks on his latest, Release Therapy, when they belong as much or more to Pharrell, R. Kelly and Mary J. Blige as they do to the man himself?

Not that anyone will be suggesting any time soon that these rappers should bow out and let Ludacris cut his own tracks. Without them, he sounds more like plain old Chris Bridges, his erstwhile self.

This is the guy everyone expects to - someday - release that hip hop epiphany of an album that makes everybody everywhere at the same time go 'Yeeeah.' Sadly, Release Therapy is not it.

It has many of the right ingredients: the butt-shaker, Money Maker, courtesy of Pharrell with the do-no-wrong Neptunes producing; Girls Gone Wild is the requisite rap anthem to raunch; and Freedom of Preach is the 'give it up for God' track that no self-respecting rapper can leave off the end of an album.

What's missing is something worth listening to that we haven't heard on Ludacris' previous four Def Jam recordings.

He raises the question himself on Girls Gone Wild: 'Never scared to be different/ The impossible is put into existence/ For instance this is me/ What did you expect from the fifth LP?' Well, Ludacris, something that separates you from the pack of misanthropes and misogynists would be a start.

Maybe we'll have to wait until the sixth record for that to be put into existence.