If "The Chronic" were a city, Nihilism would be mayor, and Hope and Faith would roll up the windows and lock the doors. After that hip-hop Nevermind, it fits that the follow-up finds Snoop cursing fame: As Nirvana's Kurt Cobain groans, "I do not want what I have got," on In Utero, Snoop opens Doggystyle talking about giving up his kingdom. But Snoop is no disaffected
Read More
suburbanite whose millions are messing up his artistic credibility. Snoop's nihilism was born of generations of poverty, but his biggest problem now is the high price of black dreams.
Doggystyle is filled with verbal and vocal feats that meet its three-mile-high expectations. "Some of these niggers is so deceptive/Using my styles like a contraceptive/I hope you get burnt," Snoop rhymes on "Doggy Dogg World." On "Lodi Dodi," he covers Slick Rick's classic "La-Di-Da-Di," sounding like young Miles Davis interpreting Thelonious Monk's jazz standard "Round Midnight."
But more stunning is that Snoop's pain appears so often. On "Serial Killa," Dogg Pound member Daz rhymes about niggers around the way asking him about Snoop: "Is that nigga Snoop all right?/Ay, yo, what's up with the crew?/Is the nigga in jail?/I heard the nigga's through." Daz says everything's all right, but it doesn't sound like it. As Snoop begins Doggystyle's first song, "Gin and Juice," "With so much drama in the LBC/It's kinda hard being Snoop D-o-double-g."
Dre tries to cover up for Snoop. The Chronic's slow, heavy beats were a sonic representation of angry depression as accurate as Cobain's feedback blasts; Doggystyle is leaner, with its high-tempo Isaac Hayes- and Curtis Mayfield-derived tracks. The sound-lyric tension peaks on "Ain't No Fun" as a quietstorm groove swirls and Snoop and his homies sing and rap about gang fucking. It's a funny song if you don't think about how the woman 2Pac and his homies allegedly sodomized might feel about it, but most hip-hop fans are so used to the ethical deadening hip-hop routinely demands that they won't. Pray that "No Fun" isn't misinterpreted by some sick fan, like Nirvana's "Polly" was, as an encouragement to rape.
But Dre's production can't hide Snoop's lurking paranoia. Most of Dre's hooks and nearly all his beats refuse to linger, as if the songs themselves are nervous, fearful of exposure, restless to get offscreen. Doggystyle speeds through 55 minutes of constant talk as if on a suicide hot line. Snoop knows his life looks enviable to those living vicariously through albums and videos, but what he's really living is a multidimensional life that's in genuine danger.
Ice Cube is also in danger, albeit musically: The most interesting question surrounding Lethal Injection is, has any rapper ever fallen off as hard as Cube? A modern Richard Wright, Cube made or helped make three hip-hop classics – Straight Outta Compton, Amerikkka's Most Wanted and Death Certi
