In many ways, this album is Vernon's way of handling his own karma. His rock 'n' roll dream came true; his band Living Color went platinum, opened for The Rolling Stones, played at Lollapalooza. They hit the big time. Yet you won't hear Reid pining for the old days. Instead, he focuses on the bigger picture, contemplating larger philosophical ideas.

"Wanting to be transcendent," he begins slowly, "is almost a guarantee that you won't, because that want becomes the biggest want that there is. And then that want ultimately stands in the way."

Has Vernon been pondering Zen koans? Such spiritual musings, the mind begs for more details. Vernon, what kind of...

"What kind of guitar do I play ?" he cracks.

In light of all the personal and professional upheaval Vernon has endured in the last few years, it's refreshing to see his sense of humor is intact. Mistaken Identity is fun, a festival of styles and genres, infused with a sense of spirituality. No longer restricted by the metal expectations of Living Color, Vernon's eclectic taste runs unbridled; The Orb, Miles Davis and Soundgarden all serve as points of inspiration, and as a result, Mistaken Identity is the delicious mishmash of funk, rap, jazz and rock that Living Color hinted at, but never fully realized.

But how did all of this come to pass?

"It started, I suppose, a little bit before Living Color ended, but I didn't start doing other music with the idea of having a new band or anything. I was feeling kind of blue. Feeling a little bit blue because I was also going through a divorce and it was a real trip. I kind of needed to reassess it, to reassess my life. But music was really important. You know, it's easy to become very - when things are happening that are not too great - it's very easy to become really jaded. It's really easy to have that happen. But the thing about it is that ultimately I love music, you know? I mean I really love it just because - just because. Not because of anything that is - not because of ego, just because I dig it, so returning to that was really important."

He seems to be alluding to the rock star egos that factored into the breakup of Living Color, but that doesn't mean he harbors any bitterness for his former bandmates. Looking back, he doesn't blame anybody for what went wrong in the band, willingly accepting his role in the band's demise.

"Well, you know, I could probably rage about this and that, or accuse this one of being that, but I'd really accuse myself, ultimately. I chose to be with certain people, and I had a role to play. I had a role to play in what it was, and it wasn't all bad - it was great. We were a great band. My ex-wife is beautiful. But, ultimately those things don't matter.

"We're all dramas in process, and people have roles that they want people to come in contact with; people like to become involved with. For some reason it becomes connected to all of their issues. And I think that's what happened, ultimately, because we connected in ways that we couldn't even begin to fathom. We were connected to each others' personal issues and we were probably all in denial individually.

"This may sound like psychological gobbledygook, but whether it sounds like gobbledygook or not, it's the truth," he continues emphatically. "I don't care about the psychological fashions and all that. Having lived through it, you know, I understand it. I understand why The Beatles had to break up. I don't have to know a thing that happened or why. After going through it, and as a fan, a fan of a group, you're like a child of a marriage or some kind of relative. You console each other. Fans can only do that."

Fans can also look forward to the solo projects of their favorite splintered band, seeing which directions each member explores. Reid, typical of his unitarian musical sensibility, began the experiment by hiring an odd couple to help with production. From the hip-hop world, Vernon recruited Prince Paul, the producer of the legendary De La Soul album Three Feet High And Rising. Next he hired jazz producer Teo Macero, whose credits include jazz heavyweights Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis and Charles Mingus. Vernon gushes about each of his co-producers.

"Teo Macero's a nut! He's great. He's so young. This guy's gotta be about seventy, but he's so alive and young. He's great. Working with him was a dream come true. Working with both of them was great. And the way they related to one another was great.

"I think that's one of the great joys, to be in a position to bring people together. I think if anything, I would love to be a musical match-maker [laughs], like, 'You should play with him,' 'You should sing with her,' I'd love to do that. I'm just meddlesome," he says laughing.

The musical marriages he does get to arrange produce some interesting children. On "Lightin'" his tribute to bluesman Lightin' Hopkins, he shreds - just in case you'd forgotten that he is a guitar god -- but then he clears out to make way for a wicked clarinet freakout from Don Byron.

"Uptown Drifter" provides another highlight of Mistaken Identity. Vernon has written about that song, "I tried to evoke the feeling of Harlem at twilight, with the sun going down and the streetlights coming up." It's a wonderful tune.

"Yeah, it's so funny, man, I've gotten a lot of e-mail about it. People have just been calling me up and talking to me off the top of this like, 'Oh man, I love that song.' And people don't even know why they do. It's just because the song doesn't - you know, a lot of music is demanding and commanding. Like, 'Pay attention to me - I'm groovy, I'm sexy, I'm cool, I'm this, I'm that!' And 'Uptown Drifter' doesn't do that at all [laughs]. And it's not laid-back, you just come to it, it's like, come or not."

Another standout cut is "St. Cobain." Before you cringe, listen to Vernon's explanation.

"It's kind of a weird song because it's weirdly uplifting in a way, like weirdly celebratory. I celebrate his impulse. There's a part that breaks down where the 'free Nelson Mandela' thing comes on and the ladies are singing "free." It's like, I could dig that."

And that's the first time I've heard anybody so succinctly extract the goodness from such a troubled soul; Vernon finds the pure heart inside the poison body.

"Take Kurt Cobain. I mean, he's playing the most basic chords; basic stuff, but he did it in a way with his band that sounded totally new and kickin'. It was kickin'. Nirvana was like what the Sex Pistols were. They came out and just kicked a bunch of ass all around. And this from a guy who was deeply damaged, really damaged and really on the highway to hell or whatever, and I don't mean hell in a Christian proselytizing. But he was able to do something that Eddie Van Halen couldn't do, and Eddie Van Halen's one of the greatest rock guitar players ever.

"That's the thing about music - music is bigger than us. It's not even about the kind of music, the form. It's what really is, what's behind it. What's in your soul."

With Mistaken Identity, Vernon Reid returns to the basics, approaching his music with a newfound clarity and enthusiasm. It's something that the breakup of his band helped him rediscover.

"Life can drag you down. I'm fascinated with the fact that at the height of [Living Color's fame] - when everything was groovy and I was doing really, really well - at the height of all of this, there were things that made me happy. If a show was good, I was psyched. It was like, 'Wow, this is great.' But on some deeper level it eluded me, and it was baffling. Really baffling, and the lesson of it is that joy is in the moment right now, right here. Don't postpone happiness to another time. There is no other time. There is no other time.

Alex Mulcahy