Doggystyle – Snoop Dogg

1993 – Death Row

Hip-Hop/ Rap

Rapper Snoop Dogg’s debut record and highest selling album to date Doggystyle is a groovily hypnotic piece of bass-heavy rhyme styling. From track to track the listener is dealt out a heavy hand of g-funk beats, laid-back raps, and half-formed attempts at humour. And, while this record has met with rave reviews from all over, I’ve got to say that I really just hated it.

It’s all just so self-obsessed and sexist without any of the politicized situational awareness of earlier hip-hop artists. I mean, starting out with the immensely pointless and stupid Bathtub we know what kind of a record we are in for; one full of disrespect to women and glorification of self-destructive criminality. I suppose some kudos can be given for the catchiness of certain tunes and the grabbingly hypnotic bass and synth lines, but this is really overpowered by this record’s tendency to revel in the basest elements of rap culture.

We are given a brief look at the underside of the terrors of ‘thug-life’ in Murder Was The Case, and I was truly thankful to finally get something on this album with any kind of intellectual depth, but, unfortunately, this musing on Snoop’s own mortality was quickly dissolved back into the macho bravado of Serial Killa. This, I think, is a pretty good example of how this record works; it is constantly setting up opportunities for a unique look at the darkness of street life and then drowning them out with a showy flex of Snoop’s lyrical biceps and yet another quip about marijuana. I mean, after the first two or three tracks I felt as if I’d heard all this record had to offer in terms of content, and, honestly, I didn’t even really care about those tracks.

This, however, isn’t even the worst part of this record. I could deal with Snoop constantly telling me what a badass he thinks he is even though I couldn’t really care less. I could deal with the ubiquitous preoccupation with ounces of weed and gin and juice. What I couldn’t deal with was the also omnipresent sexism and misogyny. I mean, the incredibly puerile and nonsensical radio interludes and constant iterations of how much Snoop doesn’t love ‘hoes’ [sic] were just so awful that I could feel myself cringe every time certain lines were sung. And then I got to Ain’t No Fun which was just so loathsome that I almost had to turn it off and take a vomit break. It really is deplorable, and it’s not even catchy or well written enough to give it any kind of mention outside of its status as the absolute worst kind of trash imaginable.

In conclusion I have to say that Snoop Dogg’s Doggystyle is one of the worst and most despicable records I have ever had the misfortune of listening to. I will give credit to Dr. Dre for the intricate and catchy music on this record, but outside of that I can think of no reason why anybody ever needs to listen to this album ever in their life. Not even as a joke. Not even ironically. I will never understand how this record ever made it to quadruple platinum.

RATING: */5

Here is Who Am I (What’s My Name) from the album Doggystyle. This is perhaps one of the less repugnant tracks from that record.

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