The music is classic purple funk of the sort Prince and the Flyte Tyme team minted in the mid '80s: short, sharp bursts of keyboard over percolating bass and drums, with just enough whip-snap syncopation to make the rhythm stylish as well as taut. The voice, too, is familiar.

"I'm back!" he shouts, barking each letter of his name through the snaky beats: "A-l-e-x-a-n-d-e-r O-N-e-a-l/ It's been a long time since we met/ I'm so glad to be back/ Minneapolis!/ Minneapolis!"

Yes, after more than a decade based in England, the passionate soul singer moved back to the Twin Cities a few months ago, toting his first stateside release since 1997, "Five Questions: The New Journey." ("I'm Back" is the second song.) O'Neal, who preceded Morris Day as front man for the Time a quarter-century ago, will perform Tuesday at the Dakota Jazz Club, in what amounts to a simultaneous homecoming and record-release party. The concert -- in a venue more intimate and upscale than O'Neal's former local haunts -- and the songs on "The New Journey" will also reveal to fans old and new how the 57-year-old singer has evolved.

"This album is meant to be a journey, from that 'Minneapolis Sound' that is so danceable and uptempo to more of that East Coast, mid-tempo thing and then journeying into the ballads," he said by phone from his home right outside Minneapolis. "This is gutsy: I paid for this record and I am the executive producer of it. The strings on there are not samples; I brought in the violins.

"Baby-boomer artists have to understand that they aren't handing out record contracts in this new world unless they can make a fast buck. We need to take matters into our own hands. I've done that and I am showing people, 'This is who Alexander O'Neal is today.'"

Be it yesterday or today, O'Neal always has been tenacious. Dropped from the Time right before it became part of the commercial groundswell surrounding Prince, he dusted himself off and built a formidable solo career. With the Flyte Tyme production team -- former bandmates Jimmy Jam Harris and Terry Lewis -- O'Neal churned out hits that ranged from bedtime duets with the female singer Cherrelle ("Saturday Night Love"), to torrid, funky-purple soul stompers ("Fake"), to slinky midtempo romantic testimony ("All True Man").

When the hits dried up in the mid '90s, O'Neal decided to relocate in England, where he'd always been extremely popular.

"When I left I wasn't very positive about Minneapolis. It felt like we were in limbo, and I didn't like the way the police seemed to be given a free hand to profile and to bash people," he says. "Minneapolis was always home; even in the 10 years I commuted. But I learned a lot. I used to think going to Miami or Jamaica was the end of the world. I never dreamed of places like the Canary Islands and all the culture in Europe.

"But having seen the world, I began to wonder if I was getting too comfortable -- would I die someplace other than here? I thought about being back in Minneapolis, beside my wife, who has been holding down the fort here -- we've been married 21 years. And I just decided: enough is enough, and came home."

Retro but still riveting

Of course, returning home with a brand-new album that celebrates this area by sound and by name on a few tracks (there's one called "Minnesota Shuffle") is also a good way to jump-start his career after a fallow period. Listening to the first few songs -- a thoroughly credible recreation of the "Minneapolis Sound" without Jam and Lewis -- one can regard them as durably danceable retro romps or a hopeless attempt to resurrect a place and time that no longer exist.

But the pastiche of styles on "5 Questions: The New Journey" also demonstrates that O'Neal remains a riveting singer with legitimate ways to extend his career, regardless of where he is located. "You Make Me Smile" is a sophisticated soul-jazz number in which O'Neal toys with the lyrics and investigates his emotions with the playful élan of an Al Jarreau, right down to the excursion into scat-song. "Love Won't Let Me Wait" likewise benefits from laid-back horns, well-suited to O'Neal's smooth confidence. The title song, "5 Questions," demonstrates that O'Neal retains the passionate, bristling delivery he brought to "Fake." And the Minneapolis Sound numbers could start a party under the right circumstances.

"Hopefully there will be a good reception to the new material, but we are also going to be playing all the hits," assures O'Neal about the Dakota gig. "Audiences want to like the new stuff, but they also want to hear the old stuff -- I've seen too many artists shoot themselves in the foot not playing what the fans want."

That balancing act is all part of the process, one that he is eager to embrace.

"I'm not afraid to come back and start over. That's what this is, a new day and some new genres. If I can get my fans to realize there is a new Alexander O'Neal with a new album, then we'll see what happens."