Don't you hate misleading titles? I was hoping this would be full of mid-90s west coast Death Row-eque beats. It begins with one on 'Still Smokin' but there's not a lot from there. Nevertheless, the production is fairly good.
The opening half a dozen tracks are all decent with 'Sandwich Bag' to 'Doggystylin' being a good streak. I hate the autotune/cookie-cutter voice on the hook of 'Daddy', but the beat is hard and Snoop's verses still make it noteworthy. 'Conclicted', produced by Nas' new BFF, Hit-Boy, sees Nas and Snoop trading bars that doesn't happen anywhere near enough on songs with features. If I was to nitpick, I'd say Nas could sound more passionate on this one. The following song, 'Doggystylin', has a hard beat as well.
As a massive Curb Your Enthusiasm fan, it's hard to take the next song, 'Crip Ya Enthusiasm', seriously and not shake my head all the way through it! I'd be interested to hear opinions on the production from someone who has never seen the show and heard the iconic theme before. This is the first big skip for me. Not long after, 'House I Built', feels a bit more like chill g-funk '90s instrumentation and is a standout.
From there, the back-end is definitely weaker. It gets a touch more pop. 'Get This Dick' is one of the worst songs with the songs surrounding it not being noteworthy either. A Nate and Snoop song generally creates excitement, but 'Outside the Box' isn't great either.
There is nothing extraordinary here or to put in a best of Snoop playlist, but it's a fairly consistent mix of west coast and trap rap from front to back-at least until track 14 or so. As seems a trend these days, many songs are short, so while it's 18 tracks long, the runtime of only 53 minutes means the album doesn't drag on.
His best rounded album for quite some time.
Beats: ★★★☆
Rapping/Bars: ★★★☆
Hooks: ★★★☆
Best Tracks: Still Smokin, Sandwich Bag, Conflicted, Daddy, House I Built. Pop Pop
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