R&G (Rhythm & Gangsta): The Masterpiece [PA] - Dogg, Snoop (CD 2004)

After his album which was claimed by classic by many hip-hop fans, made friends with some of the most powerful people in Hip hop Snoop had the game in his paws. After a while Snoop lost his appeal to most and was labelled as a fluke. A lot of years later, countless appearances on other people s albums and a few more albums Snoop teamed up with The Neptunes to make summer s hit Beautiful. Snoop must have took this as a bone thrown from god. He took this chance to rebuild his career.

Snoop begins this dramatically with I Love To Give You Light . Alchemist beautifully creates this beat from strings, soft clapping and pianos and outburst of Andrae Crouch's I Come That You Might Have Light almost giving this a gospel kind of feel. It s a great song to begin with especially with Snoop looking back almost in a story format at his life. Bang out hmm there is mixed feelings about this one because the beat is kind of nice except there is one thing which has me not liking it to the max and that is the electronic sounding guns shoots. To tell you the truth I wouldn t really want to hear the Jetsons have an intergalactic shootout it would have been much better to have something like real gunshots. The beat never the less is alright it has a haunting atmosphere with the piano loop and the women singing. Again with that pro there is a con and that is a lyrics. Snoop brags about how good he is with a gun and is nothing near a masterpiece.

The first single comes up in the album and it is a pure filler you know a peanut butter and jam filling pure disgusting and junk but people seem to love it. Drop it like it s hot has a nice hook but that s all you can say good about this one. The production by Neptunes which also has lead man Pharrel on the song, sounds very simplistic but actually it is over produced with a lot of weird sounds coming out like tongue clicks, keyboards, something which sounds of stream and many more while Snoop rambles on about what knows in his own little language I got lost after Wizzay . There is other hit singles from The Neptunes as well. Let s Get Blown was the second single and again it s a load of dribble and we should label this as Beautiful no.2 but that goes to Perfect as The Neptunes and Snoop try to recreate the magic of that summer hit which again was overrated. Back to Lets Get Blown and I m surprised that the song with this type of topic was played out at early times and so many times. Signs is the 3rd single from The Neptunes and 3rd single out. Unlike the first 2 this is sort of catchy the rapid horns and the clapping give this a cool disco feel. Its also amusing to hear Justin Timberlake say F**k in the hook which is nicely provided by him.

Apart from the clear attempts of success with The Neptunes he has other less obvious ones. His 4th single is his best on yet in my opinion. Ups And Downs based around the sampling of legends The Bee Gees Snoop if you haven t guessed it already points out the pros and cons of his life. 50 cent the man of the moment also gives Snoop some help. Oh no after a dope sample of Pulp fiction we have Snoop and 50 showcase their thugness over a threatening beat from G-unit in house producer Sha Money XL. Unlike usually when 50 shows his thug levels he comes incredibly tight on this one and throws in a dope hook in their as well. G-units in house producers also contribute to another song. Snoop D O Double G Sha Money Xl and Black Jeruz provide Snoop with a very simplistic beat with cowbells chimes and other instruments the mainstream seems to be going with. Snoops lyrics are awful even with him bragging about how he knows G-unit which should be just G-units jobs. Lil John provides him with a crunked out aggressive song and if you don t know what one sounds like then please quit listening to rap music or ask your granny what it does as it was everywhere. I actually like this beat although it sounds like a lot of his other stuff but I love the hard guitar. On Step Yo Game Up it is same old snoop stuff and gets outshines by Trina which now I don t have to say how bad it is when you get outshined by her. His trying to appeal to everyone especially with a crunk song to get all the south people and the ironic thing is his probably missed out the most important people and that is the West. You d think he would have something g-funkish but no. He has Denaun Porter producing Promise I . The beat even though it fits Snoops flow its very repetitive and so are Snoops lyrics. He even has a song with Nelly which isn t that bad. Lt Hutton s beautiful piano keys and hard hitting drums is a refreshing change to the awful album. Girls like U as if you can t tell is another one of those songs and is half of what the album is made of and by this time in the album it is very repetitive by this song.

Other awful songs include The Bidness where the bombardment of uptempo horns to give it a pimp feel is awful while snoops lyrics are even more awful. I never come off tacky ummm yes you do Snoop especially on this one. Fresh Pair Of Panties is a waste of a nice beat due to snoop rambling on repetitive topics. The nicely strung together strings and piano keys. Can I Flicc Witchu has this average distorted type of beat while Snoops lyrics again make it awful. Pass It Pass It which sounds perfect for a computer game but not for hip-hop. There are about three more songs but they so awful and nothing new like the "Wballs skit" which wasn t funny to begin with and still isn t.

In all this album gets 1 out of 5 and is one the worst I have ever had the pain to listening to. There s maybe 3 or 4 good songs which you would relisten to more then once but the rest you ll likely to collect dust on them. Snoop has tried multi times to gain back status from working with people like no limit to The Neptunes excluding the amount of people his worked with. Snoop doesn t really seem interested in this anymore and seems like to be doing it just to gain money. The whole album is repetitive and boring even the beats are. His relaxed almost sing-a-long flow is the only thing which is cool anymore and maybe this is a Sign no pun intended to quit and concentrate on his acting and maybe release his porno stuff. I thought it was cool someone like Snoop at his age was getting money and appealing too people like my little cousins but if you re a real hip-hop fan you wont be very interested in this.

Recommendation: Do not buy this album buy something like Doggystyle if you want vintage Snoop.

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