Rhythm & Gangsta (The Masterpiece)

There’s something too predictable about Snoop Dogg’s R & G (Rhythm & Gangsta): The Masterpiece, his seventh studio album, to lift it beyond just about bearable background noise. You’ll look hard to find fresh sounds and approaches on this long-playing 20-tracker, where originality is seriously thin on the ground. Heard-it-before gangsta rap – OK if you’re a real fiend for the genre, but utter tedium if you’re not.
A couple of songs afford relief: ‘Oh No’ featuring 50 Cent is cool, dark and lurking, ‘Can I Get A Flicc Wittchu’, featuring Bootsy Collins, is rhythmically inventive, and ‘Fresh Pair Of Panties On’ is sweet and hot. But as for the rest …. Even ‘Signs’, sung with Charlie Wilson and Justin Timberlake, fails to grab you where it matters, though lovers of soul might enjoy R & G in parts, as soul figures large in the arrangements and backing vocals.
As for the sentiments expressed, the CD cover says it all. Snoop Dogg lounges round a swish looking pad strewn with wads of cash, drug paraphernalia, guns and barely clad bitches. Seen it before? You’ve heard the dumb-ass lyrics before, too: “You got a bitch won’t do what you say/She’s hard-headed, she just won’t obey/You’ve got to put that bitch in her place/Even it it’s slapping her in the face.”
What a yawn. Try something new, Snoop Dogg, please, before you turn us off gangsta rap forever.