Review Summary: Kanye was not the first Christian. Snoop proves this well.
Many young music listeners don't know Doggystyle. When I say they don't know
Doggystyle, I am of course talking about Snoop Dogg's first album, a classic of west coast rap. Many say Snoop has sold out and been outclassed and tossed aside by rappers like Kanye, Drake, Tyler, and Donald Glover, but these people aren't hip to the hop. They don't know the streets. Hip hop used to be real. It used to have soul. Snoop remembers because he was there, rapping in the streets of California as a small child, before he could even read the word "rap." The g-funk grooved on throughout the decades, and whether it was his appearance in
True Crime: Streets of LA or
Scary Movie 5, Snoop Dogg was a surefire way to add some pizazz to a production, fo-shizzle.
But once Snoop Dogg retreated to Africa and studied the mystic magic of marijuana and Bob Marley, the truth was revealed. Rastafarian, Pastafarian, all of it was bullcrap in the eyes of the true Lord, God, from the Bible. Snoop recorded a double album, a rare venture in modern hip-hop with the constraints of modernity, taking cues from progressive rock. He was also greatly inspired by The Bible itself. A story as epic as The Bible requires a double album. This album,
Bible of Love, should have been forced upon Kanye's ears. I loved
Danda, but everything that album attempts, I am serious as a heart attack when I say Snoop already did better here. The lyrics are spiritual and soulful. Snoop acts as the maestro of love on this album, assembling a tour de force ensemble of masterful musicianship. I feel as if God is in my ears. Many assume God sounds like Morgan Freeman but I prefer Snoop. I could fall asleep listening to this, and I often do. It makes me feel at one with the universe, in a way only Tool albums seem to accomplish. Perhaps Snoop brought a copy of
Lateralus to Jamaica, Zimbabwe, all those countries when he was studying the different tribes of old. It seems he might have ingested ayahuasca, although he has not confirmed this. He hints at this mystical substance in the lyrics of the album.
Did I mention this album is as diverse as the Bible itself? This is not just a hip-hop album. Snoop dabbles in soul, he dabbles in funk, he dabbles in metal, he dabbles in folk. He is the like the Jim Croce of hip-hop, someone who died before his time and was not taken seriously for various reasons. The crucial difference is, unlike Croce, Snoop lives on. He is somehow dead to many, but I think he deserves a fresh look. He is a spiritual shaman and he wants us to love each other and smoke marijuana. I'm a Kanye fan, but can we say the same about his message? Drake? Eminem? Unlike many rappers, Snoop does not go on the offense. He is also not on the defense. He's the referee. He is calm and collected, unbiased and clear. He has to be. He's Snoop Dogg. He is a renaissance man. He would have fit right in with Michaelangelo, Donatello, Da Vinci, Voltaire, others. You could have replaced Da Vinci with Snoop Dogg and nobody in Renaissance times would have been able to tell the difference, such is his variation of skill. Some wonder if Snoop is a freemason like Ben Franklin and John Entwistle. No, he is not hiding secrets. He is spreading love. It's not hard to figure out if you listen.
