For all the fauxlosophical treatises scrawled on “Trapped in the Clost, the “Ignition Remix,” and his certain unforgivable character traits (DEFINE UNDERAGE), R Kelly’s gifts can be distilled to a pretty simple arithmetic: melody + voice + comedy + charisma. Or as he would say, “swag like a lighter.” I’m not even sure what that phrase means, but it infects my waking consciousness. The kids say swag. Kells has swag like a combustible blend of oil, plastic, and metal. Somehow, the combination of Snoop spitting sinuous double-time raps, Kells, and a beat from Lex Luger has been mostly overlooked by the blogosphere. Thankfully, radio has continued to wage the national war to have every beat on the dial be by Lex Luger (we are roughly six months away from smooth jazz stations playing Kenny G comeback tracks produced by young Lexus — so flute trill).
Despite being as overexposed as Charlie Sheen (his latest collaborat0r) Snoop’s new album “Doggumentary” is deceptively strong. Not all of it, of course. Sampling Yazoo with T-Pain is a slithery flail at the pop charts. While lyrically, Snoop has been in a holding pattern since the days of “Deep Cover.” But like Kells, he blends charm with great comic instincts. As J-Treds once said, the man has more presence than attendance in a class of schizophrenics. My full review is up at the Times, but don’t be deceived by the blithe stoner persona. For all his fried synapses, Snoop is a serious student of music and his latest album finds him going heavy into modern funk, while sharing drugs with everyone from Willie Nelson to Bootsy Collins to Jake One — the latter’s evolution into token underground nod on overground albums is a very welcome trend (see also: T.I.’s “Salute.”)
Five years ago, I might have written off Snoop as another legacy artist destined to lapse into irrelevancy and repetition. But his recent collabos with Dam-Funk augur well for his trajectory. In his own singular way, Snoop’s evolving into the rap equivalent of a “Computer Games”-era George Clinton. Except that the lighter is incinerating only herbal forms of medicine.
Download:
MP3: Snoop Dogg ft. R Kelly-”Platinum”
MP3: Snoop Dogg ft. Pilot-”Gangbang Rookie” (Left-Click)
5 comments
dalatu says:
April 4, 2011 at 1:35 pm (UTC -7)
I cannot say I like “Platinum”, but I will give it some credit as R Kelly does not sound as awful as he probably should over a Lex Luger beat. But, that “Wet” song produced by The Cataracs should never have happened (said from a mild Catarcs apologist).
hl says:
April 4, 2011 at 8:09 pm (UTC -7)
I’ve been hearing good things about this Snoop album. I should probably check that out.
Uptown Jebus says:
April 4, 2011 at 8:37 pm (UTC -7)
Hate to be that guy, but I believe J-Treds not EL-P says “Cause on the mic I’ve got more presence than attendence in a class of schizophrenics”.
Passion of the Weiss says:
April 4, 2011 at 9:45 pm (UTC -7)
My bad — that’s what I get for writing and not thinking. Thanks for the catch.
Album isn’t great but it’s definitely better than it has a right to be this deep in Snoop’s career. But yeah, Datalu’s right — “Wet” is horrifying.
ButSeriously says:
April 5, 2011 at 8:51 am (UTC -7)
Yooo could you guys post Ghostwridah’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Jack Move? He remixes MBDTF, like he did for 305s and Heartbreaks and it’s unreal. I have no affiliation with the guy, I’m just a huge fan. He’s criminally underrated, and you’ve posted a song with him on here before! If there’s one artist on the come-up who deserves shine and embodies the deeper thinking so prevalent here at PassionWeiss, it’s Ghost. Give it a listen, it will not disappoint.
And you’ll love him, he’s got all sorts of contradictions just ripe for exploration. Also his last project over original projection is beastly. Really incredible beats, and dope lines:
http://www.djbooth.net/index/mixtapes/entry/ghostwridah-in-love-with-my-future/
All love
The link to My Beautiful Dark Twisted Jack Move: http://www.2dopeboyz.com/2011/04/05/ghostwridah-my-beautiful-dark-twisted-jack-move-mixtape/