Review Summary: Snoop Dogg is a great flow-er, salesman, and has a great ear for beats. When it comes to lyrics... umm...
Snoop Dogg is a well-known rapper that is not really renowned for his ability, more known for being easily the most charismatic rapper in the game. How could he have convinced his fans to buy his No Limit material other than with his fantastic salesmanship and his always on-point flow. Being the always successful salesperson he is, he jumped the No Limit ship just in time to move onto the next big trend: the Neptunes clique and Star Trek records. Snoop Dogg seemed fully and readily equipped for the slick productions of Neptunes and affiliates, some trying to re-create the G-Funk atmospheres of Snoops earlier material, but most testing Snoop, seeing if he's ready for Neptunes punchy rhythms and pop playgrounds.
Paid Tha Cost To Be Da Bo$$ is a awkward mixture of Snoop Dogg and Neptunes and we get quite a few great pop singles, some good rap songs (not because of Snoop's rapping ability), a lot of trash, and an album that is just as cohesive as everything else that the Neptunes allowed out besides Clipse.
Of course, Clipse are clearly not the subject of this review, and its certainly weird to see them not appear on this Neptunes-driven record. Much rather, we see The Neptunes in their full glory, creating glazing, sweet synthesizers to make their hits, and it seems to be entirely in Snoops versatile ball park. “Beautiful” is the perfect example of Neptunes gone right, with African drums, lively atmosphere, blazing acoustic guitars, and organs, and “From Tha Chuuuch to the Palace”certainly packs a punch, with it's riveting haunted house distorted synths. The production side of the record is much more effectively than the Mcing, and that's to be expected from Snoopy, but it's still rather excellent with the production. Even Premier comes by to drop off goodies, giving us Snoop Dogg's newest banging anthem “The One And Only”, which samples possibly Snoop's only song worth noting from his No Limit era “Bitch Please” for the hook, while “Batman and Robin”, while one of the albums weaker tracks due to a washed up RBX and Lady of Rage, features a purely menacing instrumental.
However song-wise, despite purely solid production,
Paid Tha Cost... is fairly inconsistent, if only because its a Post-
Doggystyle record. “Beautiful” is a catchy pop song, but the first half of the record suffers from the fact that the first three songs are worthless and terrible. “Lollipop”, though having a Just Blaze which is a good thing in any situation, is terrible because of it's completely uncompelling verses from Soopafly and, surprisingly, Jay-Z. Snoop's rapping is an issue here, because although his flow is as charismatic as ever, his lyrics are half-way to wholely a great amount of the time. As well as that, Pharrell's stamp over the entire record may not be that good of a thing, because although The Neptunes are clearly at their best here, his awkward Prince-hopping voice is a nusance. The only place where truly good Mcing makes an appearance is the slightly uninspired verse of Redman, which proves once again that Redman is one of the most kick ass MC's anywhere.
Paid Tha Cost... is Snoop Dogg's eyes opening up, seeing who's owning the mainstream, and asking them to make him a record to rap to. Needless to say, Snoop Dogg's become the master of writing a few good pop songs, mixed in with some terrible filler and mediocre stuff.
Paid Tha Cost... is worth it if production is your main love in rap, otherwise this would not be your thing.
