Radical politics and classic G-funk make strange bedfellows on the Coup’s new album, “Pick a Bigger Weapon” (Epitaph). It’s the oddly cute melange that the Oakland hip-hop duo has mined for more than a decade now, marrying militancy to a street-shaking bass throb.

As with previous releases, MC Boots Riley comically skips through urban tales and revolutionary agitprop over Pam the Funkstress’s roomy beats. But what’s surprising about “Weapon,” the Coup’s fifth album, is how refreshingly sensible it feels – although it’s difficult to tell if that is due to the group’s ongoing refinement of its sly sound or the climate in which it arrives.

The Coup is one of those rare hip-hop acts, underground or otherwise, that hasn’t abandoned the song as a vehicle for storytelling. Front and center is Riley’s rubbery delivery of his richly detailed lyrics.

Over the neck-snapping bass slap of “We Are the Ones,” Riley ricochets through a portrait of living hand-tomouth where getting by involves doing whatever is necessary, be it rhyming, stealing, or drug-dealing. Wilier than the average street-scene sociologist, however, Riley admits the futility of letting the end justify the means: “The world was cold yet hell was near, so I saved for a kilo / And my stack got a little bit taller like skee-lo / A street C-E-O, there was all of this heroin and not one hero,” he rhymes before conceding “I survive without legal permission, it’s unequal division / And then we go to prison, which is a lethal decision.”

The Coup’s greatest asset in success fully putting over its rhetoric – which is a variant on the personal-is-political leftism of the 1960s – is a well-timed comic edge.For just about every protest slogan, Riley throws in a self-deprecating curveball. “Our pay is unstable and under the table / We like free speech but love free cable,” he deadpans in “We Are the Ones,” and then brings that sardonic blade to his political thrust with “We’re the have-nots, but we’re also the gone-gets / Not just talking ’bout the Lex with the chrome kits.”

The Coup has wielded this engaging blend of colloquial humor and graduate-student Marxism since 1994’s “Genocide and Juice,” but it has rarely felt like the bracing tonic that “Weapon” does.An infectious euphoria that comes through on the rallying cry “ShoYoAss,” for instance. Bobbing along a sunny funk beat that sounds like it was lifted from a roller-skating party, Riley runs through heated distrust of institutional power – “See they tryna break us so they don’t have to break bread / ‘Cuz Uncle Sam ain’t the banker, he’s the butcher / We’re all on Punk’d with no Ashton Kutcher” – before ending the song in a cheery chorus of “It’s introduction of a new breed of leaders / stand up, organize.” Other militant highlights include “My Favorite Mutiny,” featuring Talib Kweli and the Roots’ Black Thought, and “Head of State,” which imagines President Bush and Saddam Hussein in bed together.

Even better is when the Coup turns to bedroom soul. A standout on the album is “Baby Let’s Have a Baby Before- Bush Do Something Crazy.” It gracefully moves along a filigree of jazzy guitar, subtle bass stroll, and swaying string section as guest vocalist Silk E distressingly begins this love song, “I don’t really wanna fuss and fight / Baby, we might have numbered nights.” Riley knows that apocalyptic fear is an odd subject for a romantic ballad, and he tempers the reactionary apprehension with yet more comic relief: “The police got us runnin’ scared, but I still got some love to share,” Silk E offers in her caramel croon before adding, “Plus you know I stopped smokin’ squares.”

In the lover-man slow jam “I jus wanna lay around all day in bed with you,” Riley offers his most affecting story yet. The smoky melody bobs and weaves along a taffy-like R &B pulse, the sort of background sound that wallpapered 1970s hotel bars. This provides the cushion for Riley’s narrator, who wakes up and tries to find the will to go to work as his girl sleeps next to him. He curses the alarm clock for working; he bemoans the fact that his job owns more of his time than she does. And he finally decides that he’ll just be late today, inviting his mate to “Lose me in your details, break my codes / Till all the good breakfast spots is closed.”

Mundanely deciding to make love instead of money isn’t as high-minded as discourses on power, but it’s a feeling with which everybody can sympathize. Any radical willing to admit that staying in bed may be the sanest and most subversive option available just might be a thinker worth parsing.