Hey, um, have you ever seen ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’?”” Jeffrey Townes asks an impatient cop out his car window, who keeps croaking about some 85-in-a-60-zone, license-and-registration shit. “”You know the guy they always used to throw out of the house?”” he pleads, hoping for a little famous-face payoff a decade later, poking fun at his own washed-up ass – one of many snail-paced skits embedded into his newest project (a sequel to 2002’s The Magnificent).

But just because the 5-0 don’t know DJ Jazzy Jeff doesn’t make him any less of a legend in the right hip-hop circles – a former accomplice to the high-topped Fresh Prince (Will Smith), the original geek-rapper, he has enough admirers to compile quite the VIP guest list, even if his transform scratches and sparse funk-hop aren’t moving any fresh soil these days. He lays low and humble through joints featuring top lady-emcee Jean Grae, Kanye protege Rhymefest and old-school giant Big Daddy Kane. As with most “”comebacks,”” and in a direct extension of its prequel, Return sticks to the tried-and-true formula that won our hearts in its prime, cut-and-pasting old turntable tricks and jazz keyboards onto an inevitably watered-down, studio-surround palette and throwing in some modern R&B for diversity’s sake. Return even attempts an all-encompassing lyrical collage of hip-hop history, spewing classic phrases like these are the Hall of Fame placement exams – stuff of the “”Forever-ever? Forever-ever?”” and “”Definition of a real emcee”” caliber.

As sweet as it is to hear modern talents like Grae and J-Live call back to a DJ they once worshipped, their contributed verses are often insulting in their laziness. Let’s just admit that there’s only one man we want to see over Jeff’s funky stuff, and he’s got the Oscars to worry about now – as opposed to unswayable speeding tickets.