November 12, 2008

Snoop Doggy Dogg - Tha Doggfather (November 12, 1996)




When Dr. Dre defected from the Death Row Records camp for personal and financial reasons, he left behind his protege, Snoop Doggy Dogg, and his merry band of weed carriers. (He also left behind the label's newest signee, 2Pac, who wasn't long for the world, much less the label.) As a result, Snoop was forced to face a harsh reality: his debut disc, Doggystyle, as well as most of the hits he had appeared on to this point, were all produced by Andre Young. Was Snoop simply a good rapper that happened to benefit from the Doctor's orders, or did the instrumentals make Snoop sound like a good rapper?

In 2006, Calvin Broadus tested the waters with Tha Doggfather, his sophomore album for Death Row Records. (In the three years between discs, Snoop had also contributed heavily to Tha Dogg Pound's Dogg Food, which was mixed by Dr. Dre if not produced by him, and the Murder Was The Case soundtrack, which was inspired by a short film starring Snoop himself: he also popped up on the Above The Rim soundtrack.) The new disc boasted absolutely zero Dre involvement: it is theoretically possible that Dre was visiting another fucking planet while Snoop recorded his magnum opus. (Although Snoop was very careful to not fire any shots in the Doctor's general direction, so as not to burn those bridges just in case, he does manage to stubbornly insist that he never needed Dre's help multiple times throughout Tha Doggfather. This was probably done at the insistence of label head Suge Knight, who would later alienate Snoop to such a degree that he would also defect, although much less successfully than Dr. Dre.)

Tha Doggfather's theme is similar to most hip hop sophomore releases: Snoop attempts to further the ideas and tales that pervaded Doggystyle while dealing with his success, which has both positive (money, hoes, weed, stuff) and negative (mo' problems) effects. To aid his cause, Snoop enlisted beats from his cousin Dat N---a Daz (one-half of Tha Dogg Pound and, at this point, Death Row's in-house producer), DJ Pooh, and a host of other West Coast stalwarts. He even commissioned a remix of the title track from little-known Virginia producer Timothy Mosely, who does business as Timbaland: although the outcome sucked monkey balls, it is impressive to see that Snoop was capable of looking outside of the box for help.

Tha Doggfather went on to sell tons of units (although probably not as many as Wikipedia claims), but none of the tracks had the cultural impact that "Gin & Juice" had on the mainstream, and the disc left rabid fans counting down the days until a Dre and Snoop reunion would become possible (read: when Snoop left the label).

Until then...

1. INTRO
While this intro does manage to illustrate how much Snoop's life has changed since Doggystyle, it's still pretty goddamn boring.

2. DOGGFATHER (FEAT CHARLIE WILSON)
There may be no Dr. Dre prescriptions on Tha Doggfather, but that doesn't necessarily mean that Snoop is screwed when it comes to the beats: his cousin's instrumental is actually really fucking good, and if I'm not mistaken, this is among the first of many collaborations between Snoop and Charlie Wilson (from the Gap Band). This is pretty awesome.

3. RIDE 4 ME
A skit so early on in the sequence? Groan...

4. UP JUMP THA BOOGIE (FEAT KURUPT, CHARLIE WILSON, & TEENA MARIE)
This song has "West Coast" stamped all over it, thanks to the Roger Troutman-esque vocoder. Not bad, but nothing special, even with the contribution from Teena "Square Biz" Marie.

5. FREESTYLE CONVERSATIOPN
Snoop sounds more like he's trying to convince himself that he doesn't need Dre's beats, because I don't believe him. The instrumental here is lacking, but in a good way: this is possibly the first time that Snoop has attempted to get what some may refer to as "lyrical", and to be honest, he sounds weird, but not bad.

6. WHEN I GROW UP
Skit...

7. SNOOP BOUNCE (FEAT CHARLIE WILSON)
Sampling "More Bounce To The Ounce" hasn't been considered original ever since Jesus Christ jacked the beat for his disciples to rip shit to, son!

8. GOLD RUSH (FEAT KURUPT, BAD AZZ, & TECHNIEC)
The beat has a very effective take on the Wild West, not that Snoop seemed to notice, since he's not exactly subtle with the metaphors. He's not bad, though, although Kurupt is infinitely better. Hell, the beat is so good that two of the members of Snoop's LBC Crew, a merry band of seat warmers and CD burners, manage to sound decent.

9. (TEAR 'EM OFF) ME & MY DOGGZ
This beat blows. It's so distracting that I can't even recall if Snoop rhymed on here or just simply ad-libbed for three and a half minutes.

10. YOU THOUGHT (FEAT SOOPAFLY & TOO $HORT)
Hey, WBALLS is back! Considering how often Snoop has swiped Too $hort's phrase "beeyotch!", it shouldn't be surprising that $hort himself appears on this album, but it is, because the instrumental (provided by Soopafly) is more high-energy than anything I remember hearing him rhyme to up to this point (this is pre-Lil' Jon collaborations, of course). Misogynistic as fuck, but it's still not bad: I was most impressed with Soopafly, personally.

11. VAPORS (FEAT CHARLIE WILSON & TEENA MARIE)
Snoop both covers and adapts Biz Markie's hit single, thereby continuing his trend of paying homage to old-school artists by simply re-doing songs that he likes. This song actually works, possibly a little bit better than "Lodi Dodi", if only because Snoop now has much more experience behind the mic.

12. GROUPIE (FEAT CHARLIE WILSON, NATE DOGG, THA DOGG POUND, & WARREN G.)
Ostensibly "Ain't No Fun (If The Homies Can't Have None) Part 2", but, ultimately, this isn't entertainingly misogynistic enough (if there is such a phrase) and, as such, is not an enjoyable listen. It just sounds mean.

13. 2001
Simple, effective, and good. That's all I got.

14. SIXX MINUTES
This song isn't actually six minutes long, so there are already two things wrong with the title. (See if you can guess the other one.)

15. (O.J.) WAKE UP (FEAT TRAY DEEE)
Oddly melodic, but not enough for you to give a crap.

16. SNOOP'S UPSIDE YA HEAD (FEAT CHARLIE WILSON
This was the first single, and it was a poor choice, in my opinion, since it's obvious that this song was trying to go for the "What's My Name (Who Am I)" demographic, and that track wasn't a good choice for the first single from Doggystyle, either. Lyrically, Snoop sounds rather impressive, but I can't recommend this song to anybody.

17. BLUEBERRY (FEAT THA DOGG POUNT, BAD AZZ, & TECHNIEC)
Sounds the closest to an Andre Young prescription as we will get for a while. Unfortunately, Snoop doesn't actually rhyme on the track (he only provides the outro), but luckily for us, everyone picks up the slack over the Sam Sneed beat. (Sam Sneed's "U Betta Recognize" is one of the most underrated gems from the Death Row Records catalog, and I dare anyone to say different.) It's not the most engaging instrumental, but it's not bad.

18. TRAFFIC JAM
Another WBALLS skit. You can skip this one.

19. DOGGYLAND
Meh.

20. DOWNTOWN ASSASSINS (FEAT DAT N---A DAZ & TRAY DEEE)
I've always liked this track. Back in 1996, the beat sounded completely different from anything that Snoop had touched, thanks to its East Coast sensibilities (and immediacy). Today, obviously we've heard Snoop on plenty of other beats, but this song still evokes the nostalgic feelings.

21. OUTRO
A snippet of a live show that almost features 2Pac, but ultimately Pac doesn't appear, as he was beefing with Snoop at the time thanks to Snoop's praising of The Notorious B.I.G. Because of that, this outro is even more useless than most, and yet, I've heard worse.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Tha Doggfather is surprising in that the absence of Dr. Dre behind the boards doesn't make the disc any less viable. The production ranges from decent to great, with the needle pointing in the upper ranges for most of the time. The reasons why Tha Doggfather wasn't more of a success lie with Snoop himself: while a handful of songs prove that Snoop can fucking spit when he puts the bong down, we find him coasting on the majority of the disc, which is frustrating as hell.

BUY OR BURN? I can't recommend that anybody actually buy this, thanks to what I just wrote, but if you've ever been curious as to what Snoop can sound like without the good Doctor in his back pocket, give it a burn. You may find yourself pleasantly surprised.

BEST TRACKS: "Doggfather"; "Downtown Assassins"; "Gold Rush"

-Max

RELATED POSTS:
Snoop Doggy Dogg - Doggystyle

7 comments:

  1. Max, relax and take in the scenery. I actually advise you to stop this month of stunt-blogging... because in the grander scheme of things will accomplish nothing. Well, you will hate hip-hop for a good while.

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  2. sorry, but i am completely dissapointed with your review, for me, this one is classic as it gets, as far as west goes

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  3. AnonymousMay 24, 2009

    There's a typo in the first sentence of the second paragraph. It should say 1996 not 2006.

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  4. Does anyone know where the hell Charlier Wilson and Teena Marie appear on The Vapors... seriously not even evident so why did they even make the credits.

    Also in the album credits they mention Raphael Saadiq, though not on the album. However he was on the song "Midnight Love" which was supposed to make the album but didn't... clearly.

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  5. It is a superb record, well like all of his records, hope he can still be making records in the long future.

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  6. This is very nice article... there is one of the most notable things on the album is the complete lack of production or involvement of Dr. Dre.One of my favourite CD's. You really have a awesome blog. Its great to see that u are sharing a lot of information with people like us. Keep it up.

    Regards
    Alexa

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  7. Really your blog is very interesting.... it contains great and unique information. I enjoyed to visiting your blog. It's just amazing.... Thanks very much for the share & keep posting such an informative articles. I'm looking forward to your blog. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete