Snoop Dogg

Coolaid

BY Calum SlingerlandPublished Jul 20, 2016

6
With 14 studio albums and 24 years of rapping under his belt, is there anything left for Snoop Dogg to prove musically? Other than winning his first Grammy, there isn't much.
 
"Always be a legend, a motherfucking legend," he raps on the hook of Coolaid's opening track (titled "Legend," naturally). Aware that his status as a hip-hop icon is all but cemented, it doesn't stop the Doggfather from showing he still has some bite.
 
After separating the "funk" from the "G" in making 7 Days of Funk and Bush, much of Coolaid is a welcome return to the style the rapper helped pioneer. While "Legend" has him sounding a bit out of his wheelhouse over modern production (perhaps to prove his longevity in the rap world), no time is wasted in loading up on the catchy G-funk melodies and snappy 808s Snoop built his career on.
 
Very little of it sounds dated, thanks to the likes of Cardo, Cubeatz, Bongo and a wealth of others. Swizz Beatz, Timbaland and Just Blaze also show up for some veteran presence, along with a posthumous J Dilla flipping Gary Numan for "My Carz."
 
Snoop wears his legend status with pride across the record. "My rap style is dynamite, a lot of y'all niggas do sound alike," he says to the younger generation on "Coolaid Man," while reflecting on his cultural influence with "Ten Toes Down." Of course, the weed references are in high supply when Wiz Khalifa appears for "Oh Na Na" and "Kush Ups," and some weightier rhymes close the album on  "Revolution."
 
Lining up 20 tracks over an hour and 15 minutes undoubtedly results in some trying moments, too. "Side Piece" and "Double Tap" come off less smoothly than they should be in looking at affairs and social media flirting respectively, while the Swizz Beatz-assisted "Let Me See Em Up," "Light it Up" and "Let the Beat Drop (Celebrate)" rarely do much to stand apart from filler.
 
These occasional misses aren't enough to water down the entirety of Coolaid, though, with Snoop's return to G-funk proving refreshing enough to keep listeners' thirst quenched.
(Doggystyle/eOne)

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