Tha Blue Carpet Treatment
Tha Blue Carpet Treatmentfinds Snoop employing his usual impressive lineup of collaborators and strutting his way through a by-now standard litany of libidinous, gang-bangin' boasts. But when your record is packed with this much veteran savvy and smooth flavor, the pride comes naturally. Snoop has been g-funky as hell for a long while, but "Crazy," with its hypnotic keyboard loop and silky flow, is impressive even for him. It's a trickle of light to counter the equally accomplished but darker "Vato," a fever-dream street duet withCypress Hill's B Real. Traces ofDoggystyle-era gangsta show up as well; the laconic flow of "Candy (Drippin' Like Water)" for instance, featuringE-40andMC Eiht, is as instantly appealing as anything on that seminal debut. It must be said that whatever Snoop Dogg releases at this point in his career competes with his overwhelming celebrity and cartoonish, pimp-maestro image, and that makes it hard to take him seriously. But here, even a too-obvious, potentially disastrous song like "I Wanna F*** You" manages not to be ridiculous. If that's not the mark of a true star, I don't know what is.--Matthew Cooke