Reader Review: Tha Dogg Pound - Dillinger & Young Gotti II: Tha Saga Continuez... (November 1, 2005)

(Today’s Reader Review, which, yes, are still a thing that you could get in on if you’re interested, finds DJ Sakmaster tackling the third official project (but not the “third album”, per the artists involved) released from Tha Dogg Pound, 2005’s Dillinger and Young Gotti ll: Tha Saga Continuez... Leave your comments for him below.)

We all know the story of Death Row Records, the indestructible 1990’s rap label that proved to be anything but. Pumping out classic after classic from 1992-1997, things quickly fell apart after the death of its most controversial artist, 2Pac, with all of its remaining stars jumping ship and going on the record about the abuse and fuckery going on at the troubled label. Because of the ensuing backlash, nobody in the industry wanted to be associated with either Death Row or its co-founder, Marion “Suge” Knight, leaving its roster to be filled by shitty clones of its previous superstars, Crooked I and Eastwood being the lone exceptions.

When the label is brought up in conversation today, the names Snoop Doggy Dogg, Dr. Dre, and 2Pac are often mentioned. Two rappers that helped carry Death Row for a time, but aren’t nearly as remembered, are Kurupt and Daz Dillinger, the two halves of Tha Dogg Pound. Both contributed a number of verses to Dre’s solo debut The Chronic, Snoop’s debut Doggystyle, and both the Above the Rim and the Murder Was the Case soundtracks, which led to their own 1995 freshman effort, Dogg Food, topping the Billboard charts while quickly selling over three million copies. They were officially a force to be reckoned with, and the hip hop community eagerly awaited their follow-up.

Then it all fell apart.

During the implosion of Death Row Records, Kurupt and Daz were working on their second album, West Coast Aftershock, while simultaneously trying to launch their Gotta Get Somewhere vanity imprint (because if Snoop Dogg could do it, why couldn’t they?). If one uses the songs that have since appeared on various compilation projects credited to Tha Dogg Pound such as 2002 and Doggy Bag (or the few that popped up on Daz’s 1998 solo debut, Retaliation, Revenge and Get Back, as he was one of the last men standing at the label) as a barometer, it’s safe to assume that this project would have been fucking fire. The duo quickly established themselves as solo artists afterward: Kurupt started his own Antra imprint under A&M and found a moderate degree of success, while Daz founded DPG records and pumped out a ton of projects featuring himself or other various members of the Dogg Pound’s extended family, most of which failing to catch fire on store shelves but still managing to grow in popularity, at least in his home state of California. It’s a shame that none of their respective projects ever reached the heights of Dogg Food, but I’m not sure that's what they were going for. They just wanted to make music the homies could play at parties, which is fine, but that didn’t mean I had to ever fucking listen to it.

So for a long time, I stayed in my zone listening to Dogg Food, 2002, and Doggy Bag, pretending the projects outside of Death Row simply didn’t exist.

Then Snoop Dogg fucked it all up.

In case you weren’t aware, Snoop Dogg purchased Death Row Records earlier this year. Because Snoop is now very much into NFTs, he shut down the label’s fantastic merchandise store and removed every Death Row album from streaming services (aside from the 2Pac albums, because those are owned by his estate and not Death Row, and 2002, because I guess he thought no one would want to spend money to listen to it), presumably to sell them as NFTs, instead of, you know, releasing new music like everybody had hoped. He also released his nineteenth project, BODR (an acronym for Bacc On Death Row), through the label, which didn’t even include any of Death Row’s legacy artists, apart from the disembodied voice of Nate Dogg on one track.

This turn of events has made me very upset. I am suffering through Death Row withdrawal symptoms. I am constantly shaking and throwing up; yelling at my loved ones; attacking people in the hallways of my high school; and breaking things, all because it has been two weeks since I’ve been able to stream “What's Ya Fantasy” by Tha Outlawz and “Marriage” by Sam Sneed.

So in order to maintain fractured sanity for a couple more hours, I am going outside of my comfort zone to not just listen, but to also review non-Death Row Dogg Pound projects. After six years of establishing themselves as solo entities, the duo reunited in 2001 for Dillinger & Young Gotti, released through Daz’s imprint. There was no promotion (because Daz likely couldn’t afford the marketing costs), and they couldn’t even legally refer to themselves as Tha Dogg Pound due to contractual restraints, so the album struggled to move one hundred thousand units, which, as you can see for yourselves, is considerably less than three million copies. (Also not helping: the fact that it sounded like it was recorded through tin cans connected via a shoelace.) Among other brewing issues, this led to a falling-out between Daz and Kurupt, with the latter regressing back to Death Row Records, of all places, becoming its vice president and putting together a new album filled with Suge Knight-aided disses aimed toward his former friends. (This was a weird chapter in Kurupt’s history, I’ll tell you that much.) With Snoop’s help, the duo reconciled in 2005, quickly hitting the lab again to record Dillinger & Young Gotti ll: Tha Saga Continuez... This album did even worse on the charts, and yet managed to nearly double its predecessor’s sales.

So what does Dillinger & Young Gotti ll: Tha Saga Continuez… do better than the previous album? Is it legitimately better than the first entry? Hell, does it sound better than Dogg Food? (Absolutely not, are you fucking crazy?) Did Daz finally stop blowing all of his money on weed and condoms so he could rent a studio where they could record with a microphone that wasn’t manufactured in the 1930’s? All will be answered below.

1. THA SAGA CONTINUEZ
Pointless misspellings aside, this is typical rap album intro shit, a mishmash of megaphones, helicopter sound effects, yelling, and gunshots.

2. DPGC MUZIC
Clearly a song designed for the club, although this was actually pretty good. Kurupt manages to sound somewhat like his Death Row self (not entirely, of course), while Daz does his normal Daz thing, repeating his name and shouting out his crew the whole fucking time, but apart from that his bars are alright. Kurupt shines the brightest here, but both sound decently menacing, and the beat is repetitive, but enjoyable. A good addition to most playlists.

3. BLAST ‘EM UP (SKIT)
Heaven forbid we go more than one fucking song without a dumbass skit. I’m usually don’t mind skits if they are:

(1) funny;
(2) advance the album’s narrative; or
(3) both.

For example, I was fine with Kanye West inserting skits all over The College Dropout and Late Registration because they were funny (obviously that’s just my opinion) and because both of those albums sought to tell a story. Dillinger & Young Gotti II: The Saga Continuez..., however, is no story. I’m not convinced that either of these motherfuckers could even spell “social commentary”, especially when they can’t even spell “the” correctly. Just like the album intro, this was literally a bunch of stock gunshots being played over and over and over again, followed by people screaming. That’s fucking it.

4. CUZ I’M A GANGSTA
Bet you can’t guess what this song is about! And boy oh boy are these guys gangsta, because it should be a crime to record a song this fucking terrible. Neither Daz nor Kurupt say anything entertaining: both of their performances are basic as fuck, and the instrumental sounds like something I would find on YouTube if I looked up “West Coast-Type Beat.” The chorus features our hosts simply naming things they do (as “gangstas”, naturally), and that is exactly my issue with the song: neither Daz nor Kurupt are saying anything funny or scary, they’re just talking about the hood over a beat that happens to be playing around them. Daz should also stop all of this dumbass falsetto singing because he does not sound good.

5. HITTIN DONUTS IN THA STREETZ
After the nightmare that was the previous song, this was very refreshing. The beat was great: it gave me a strong late summer-type vibe. Both Kurupt and Daz spit pretty well during their first verses, but get lazy as the track progresses, with Kurupt losing the beat and essentially giving up on rapping, choosing instead to name the various members of the DPGC and describe what they’re driving while Daz goes on about how “gangsta” he is. The hook is absolutely fantastic, though. This song is better if you pay zero attention to the lyrics. I used the instrumental from “Hittin Donuts In Tha Streetz” for my first mixtape, so I have a soft spot for this one.

6. SAY IT
I am ashamed to say that I love this song, because it is stupid as all get out. This song is a little ode to the ladies, as Kurupt praises women for having their own job, and then tells them to fuck him. Other than the duo pretty much trade verses about partying and then meeting one particular girl they wanna fuck really badly. Daz does pretty well but its clear Kurupt is not that great at making happy little songs like this, because he is so incredibly off beat He’s certainly better here than on "Cuz I’m A Gangster," but he frustrates me because instead of rhyming “average joe” with “savage flow” he says “savage lo-lo” throwing himself off the beat, and proceeds to make a dumbass bar about where he rhymes “lo-lo” with “lo-lo”. His line “What you doing with yourself, now let me see you do it with yourself” is kinda funny though. The beat is oddly nostalgic but I really like it. Overall, this song is cheesy but I love it.

7. WE GITT
This song is so indescribably awful that the fact these two, especially Kurupt, are heroes of mine who have created some of my favorite songs ever, was too much for me. Think “Cuz I’m A Gangster” but much worse. Kurupt and Daz rap about weed and alcohol for pretty much the whole thing, which was obviously intended to be a song for the clubs, but if I was at a party where the DJ played this, I would feel compelled to attack him. The flows are horrible, as are the lyrics and the instrumental. It also seems like Daz and Kurupt were aware of how poorly all of this sounded, since there is very little enthusiasm in either of their voices. This is what hard core East Coast hip hop fans think all West Coast rap sounds like, it’s that bad.

8. U REMIND ME (FEAT. MEN-NEFER)
“U Remind Me” sounds like Dogg Food compared to ithat shitshow we just experienced. I have no fucking idea who Men-Nefer is, though, so don’t ask. Soopafly receives production credit here, which makes sense: the piano-centered beat has that Soopafly bounce you hear in a lot of his work. “U Remind Me” is about the members of Tha Dogg Pound finding a girl (just one, apparently) that reminds them of their youth. Why? I’m not sure why this is the effect she has this on them, but they end up fucking, big surprise. Both Kurupt and Daz get a chance to flex their storytelling muscles, something you don’t get to see them do very often, and I appreciate their willingness to step away from their typical gangsta abstract. Both do very well here, as well, and Men has a pretty good voice. The beat was also very nice. Overall, this was a great song. God, this album is a rollercoaster.

9. MAKE ME A BELIEVER
Another song about sex? Someone must have spiked our hosts’ drinks with Viagra or something. A spiritual sequel of sorts to Dogg Food’s “Some Bomb Azz Pussy” (which remains one of my favorites from that project, no joke, that instrumental is fucking fire), Daz’s beat slaps, and he flows really well over it. Yeah, he isn’t saying anything thought-provoking – he’s simply instructing a girl and her friends to fuck him – but he sounds great. I could have lived without Kurupt’s verse, but it was still decent enough. Daz’s moaning and commentary about his dick is a weird way to end the song, but whatever, it only lasts a few seconds.

10. I LUV WHEN YOU (FEAT. MEN-NEFER)
This is a full-on love song with Men-Nefer on the hook, one that features zero cop-outs of the “we don’t love them” variety. It wasn’t an incredible song, but the dreamy instrumental was pretty nice, and Daz absolutely kills it. Kurupt isn’t bad, but there’s nothing to praise here – it’s obvious he struggles at writing these type of upbeat and tame (at least when compared to what the man usually raps about) tracks, unable of what to do when he can’t boast about killing people or pimping out women, and his performance suffers as a result. They actually shot a music video for “I Luv When You”, a low-budget affair with our hosts walking around in the snow, which I guess isn’t that important in the grand scheme of things, but I figured you’d want to know. Great song, though. It seems we’re on the upswing.

11. WHAT YOU GON DO?
Not to be confused with “What Would U Do”, their contribution to the Murder Was The Case soundtrack which earned Tha Dogg Pound their only Grammy nomination. Apart from the whiplash that comes standard with following the previous song, this was fucking great. The hook is menacing, and Kurupt sounds good here. Really good. When Kurupt is allowed to rap about violence and sex without having to make it sweet or wholesome, he can still be a beast behind the microphone. This won’t stand tall against his finest work, but it's certainly better than essentially everything else he’s done on this project. Daz doesn’t embarrass himself, either. A great track that proves both of these guys can still rap their asses off.

12. PUSH BACC
This song is a celebration of Tha Dogg Pound reuniting, as Kurupt, who had gone back to his Death Row homestead and attacked his former friends and labelmates as a condition of his contract, had just made up with Daz. (This project was released less than three months after Kurupt’s Death Row projec,t Against The Grain.) I don’t have much to say here: our hosts spit some good shit, but none of this is on the level of the previous few tracks. L.T. Hutton produces a nice beat, though he has certainly done better work elsewhere. Hutton, if you didn’t know, produced a lot of beats for the late-stage Death Row projects, although many of them went unused.

13. RIDE AND CREEP (FEAT. D. SHARP)
The beat was alright, and D. Sharp, whoever the fuck he is, does alright half-singing during the hook. Daz kills it, and as for Kurupt, this is far from his worst performance on this album, but there isn’t much I can say about it otherwise. Which feels like the overall theme for this album: Daz is great, while Kurupt just manages.

14. OUTRO (FEELS GOOD TO BE A DOGG POUND GANGSTER)
Not a skit, weirdly, but another song. Kurupt starts out rhyming the n-word with the n-word ,so I was preparing myself for the worst, but once the man finds his footing he destroys the track. This was actually very good.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Dillinger & Young Gotti ll: Tha Saga Continuez… doesn’t even run for an hour, but because it is such a rollercoaster it feels three times as long. The album will bring back memories of Dogg Food, but just when you start to believe that Tha Dogg Pound still has it in them to create good songs (such as “What You Gon Do?” and “I Luv When You”), they shift into some of the worst fucking song you have ever heard in your life. The sequencing is off: putting all the happy love songs right next to each other, then having all the angry gangsta rap in its own bubble results in tonal whiplash. And that isn’t even mentioning the many songs that are merely okay. After hating each other for three years, Kurupt and Daz were trying to learn how to work with each other again, and that struggle is very apparent on Dillinger & Young Gotti ll: Tha Saga Continuez…. None of Daz’s beats strike me as ambitious – they all sound like the man half-assing it behind the board, although at least a few of them still wound up being pretty good despite this. It’s a shame that the worst part of this album is Kurupt, an artist who was once considered one of the strongest rappers on the scene. I’ve long suspected that he’s written verses for Daz (you can find examples of Daz rapping verses that originally belonged to his bandmate), so it’s entirely possible that Daz, being the boss, told his old friend to give him all of the best verses of the project. Maybe that was his punishment for returning to Death Row Records in the first place.

You’ve likely noticed that, apart from Men-Nefer (who has a couple songs of her own on some random compilation album), D. Sharp (whom I cannot find any additional info on), and Bishop Don Magic Juan during the intro of one song, there are no guests featured on Dillinger & Young Gotti ll: Tha Saga Continuez… Kurupt and Daz supply all of the bars here. Despite that development, Snoop Dogg, Warren G, and other DPGC members are shouted out constantly throughout. I imagine they had planned to make appearances, but upon hearing the actual music on here, suddenly remembered they had a collective dentist appointment they had to get to. Whatever the case may be, as a Dogg Pound fan I still found the high points good enough to consider this to be an enjoyable effort. It is very flawed, however, although I certainly appreciate Tha Dogg Pound’s willingness to delve into different topics instead of unleashing wall-to-wall gangsta rap this time around.

BUY OR BURN? I can’t recommend it to anybody who isn’t already a big Dogg Pound fan like myself, so buying this is out of the question. You may as well give Daz and Kurupt a few cents by streaming it, though this should never be the first Dogg Pound album you turn to.

BEST TRACKS: “DPGC Muzic”; “What You Gon Do”; “Say It”; “I Luv When You”

-DJ Sakmaster

(Questions? Comments? Concerns? Leave your thoughts below.)