This is scary. Maybe even eerie. A Snoop Doggy Dogg album that ISN'T all that. An album that is so full of weak rhythmic holes and out-of-place elements one is forced to wonder if maybe 2PAC's death has affected Snoop adversely. Granted, Snoop wouldThis is scary. Maybe even eerie. A Snoop Doggy Dogg album that ISN'T all that. An album that is so full of weak rhythmic holes and out-of-place elements one is forced to wonder if maybe 2PAC's death has affected Snoop adversely. Granted, Snoop would be hard-pressed to keep rapping songs at the level he had on "Chronic," "Doggystyle" and "Murder Was the Case." Granted, "Tha Doggfather" is still a better album than 80 percent of the rap albums that have been released since the Fat Boys were popular. Granted, Snoop no longer has the help of premier rap-music producer Dr. Dre, who left Death Row in the later part of last year... .
Ah, maybe we're onto something here. While Snoop's rapping is sub-par at times, what is most prominent about the bad on "Tha Doggfather" is the raunchy way in which Snoop's rapping clashes with the background beats more often than not. "Snoop Bounce," "Me & My Doggz," "You Thought," "Groupie," "Sixx Minutes," "Snoop's Upside Ya Head," "Blueberry" and "Doggyland" contain just a few of the dilapidated beats which haunt most of the 21 cuts splattered across "Tha Doggfather."
In a way, the sheer number of terrible tracks Snoop's lines are laid on are as funny as they are disappointing. In an underground dis of Dre and anyone who would assert that Dre's beats were as important in bringing Snoop up as his lyrics were, Snoop says in "Freestyle Conversation": "Delicate? Beats? So that's what makes me now? Nigga, I don't give a fuck about no beat."
And it shows. You'd think on this song that Snoop didn't care too much about rapping either. He's not rapping on "Freestyle Conversation"; he's talking fast, like his soul was taken over by the spirit of E-40 or something.
While the lyrical content is more interesting than the beats backgrounding it, it doesn't take much to realize that the sounds accompanying the rhymes have a purpose that shouldn't be overlooked. Dr. Dre recognized that, and it was exactly because of his bomb instrumentation that we forgave his sometimes weak vocal flow. Even MC Hammer, Luther Campbell and Vanilla Ice got away with bad rapping for awhile because of their songs' dancable flava. Snoop's rapping on "Tha Doggfather" is far from bad, but it's not being buoyed by the kind of nod-yo-head noise that Dre could mix in minutes. Dat Nigga Daz (who you'll quickly be able to hear made a lot of the mixes on this album) has some skill, but he's just no Dre.
And Snoop, "Tha Doggfather" and the hip-hop community are suffering all the more because of it.
- Eugene Bowen
Pimp Doggy Dogg looks smooth.