Snoop Dogg

Ego Trippin

BY Kevin JonesPublished Mar 11, 2008

While his artistic output has definitely been on the wane quality-wise for some time now, there’s no question that Bigg Snoop Dogg’s stature has not, and the man is still capable of banging out a club-rocking single carried on little more than his own charisma. The Miami Bass-meets-’80s old school feel and T-pain-styled vocals of "Sexual Eruption,” the lead cut from Snoop’s new Ego Trippin set, proves that point perfectly and reveals the creative new leap and go-for-broke attitude behind the record. For the first third of the disc, Snoop gets it mostly right, maintaining that smoothed-out old school R&B feel on cuts like the DJ Quik-produced opener "Press Play” and the Zapp & Roger spawned "SD Is Out,” one of several tunes served up by New Jack patriarch Teddy Riley. Unfortunately, the executive producing MC made the fatal decision of jamming 21 complete tracks onto this disc, leaving the balance of the record overburdened by failed snap-hop attempts, quirky country-inflected beats and throwaway lyrics. Reduce it by half and this could easily have been a fairly tight offering.
(Geffen)

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