Review Summary: Hip Hop at it's funnest.
Let me lure you into the solo tip of the master of weed and funky beats, Dr. Dre and the first solo rapping affair of the entirely too famous today Snoop Dogg, the debut of all the talk,
The Chronic.
The Chronic, in the production sense, creates a completely luring, wondrous effort.
The Chronic takes from 70s bouncy funk bass and 80s synthesizers, and mixes them both into a sonic booty shaking experience that pleases your ear and your pants. The albums opening tracks display this gripping funk playground of Dre perfectly, especially “Let Me Ride”, a laid back trip through the average day of Dr. Dre, and “Nuthin But a G Thang”, a fantastic anthem of Snoopy’s sweeping flow and Dre’s pure bravado on the microphone combining to form one of the most bangtastic tracks either rapper has released. At the same time, along with the funky nature of Dre’s production, he brings the record dramatic, thinking man’s points too, like paranoid, dripping atmosphere of “The Dayz the Niggaz Took Over” or the hyper-aggressive groove of “Nigga Witta Gun”, tracks that resemble N.W.A, albeit a little funkier and less pure aggression.
In the rapping sense,
The Chronic isn’t nearly as impressive. Dre resembles a gangster Diddy (or better yet, Diddy resembles a completely ungangster Dre), his ghost-written flow is completely unimpressive, and the lines he’s given are mostly amateur (“I can’t slip, cuz if I slip, then I’m slippin” is unfortunately, one of the most memorable lines of the entire album). That’s why Dre gives mostly other rappers a chance to shine on
The Chronic. The album is mostly inhabited by the likes of the laid back Snoop Dogg, with his flow and lyricism at their height, and Kurupt, who sounded more inspired on here than he did throughout the entirety of the rest of his career. Lady of Rage, too, manages to impress as well, being the only rapper who manages to drop some worth-while punchlines, but has the least memorable flow (that would be RBX’s off kilter, snake-like slithering flow.). However the constant gangster posturing of the album, it never seems to get in the way of Dre’s perfectly musicality and at some points because of Snoop Dogg’s smoothness and Kurupt’s contrasting aggressiveness, even helps it.
The Chronic, in a production sense, is even more relevant now than it was before, and despite the rapping quality, is just as fun as it used to be.
