While Snoop has never been able to top his classic debut release, Doggystyle, he still has managed to thrust himself into the public eye off the strength of that LP. Transforming himself from feared gangsta rapper to pop icon, Snoop is a household name, appearing in everything from AOL commercials to the big screen Starsky and Hutch remake. But while his music may have almost taken a back seat to his celebrity, he still has managed to keep heads paying attention to what he is doing, by constantly delivering decent LP’s every few years, usually ripe with a few undeniable classic hits. 

      With his seventh official solo release (not counting the numerous crew albums, greatest hits albums, and that one Death Row cock-block release a few years back), Snoop D-O-Double-Gizzy returns to deliver R & G: Rhythm & Gangsta: The Masterpiece. Yes, the co-pioneer in creating “G-Funk” with Dr. Dre has come up with a new form of hip-hop music, “R&G”. Originally slated to be entirely produced by The Neptunes, a few things changed by the time this album hit store shelves, but the overall idea remains the same throughout. Soulful singing, silky beats, and of course the smoothest gangster rapper of all commandeering the whole ship.

     The lead single, “Drop It Like It’s Hot” suggested that this could indeed be a new era for Snoop, one that showed The Neptunes as quite possibly the only producers that could get people to stop saying that Snoop “needs Dre” to make a hit. After propelling Paid The Cost To Be The Boss with both “Snoop Dogg” and “Beautiful”, Pharrell & Chad could be looked at as the millennial Snoop producers, so a full album produced by them sounds like it could be a classic in the making. However, a closer look at The Neptunes’ other contributions on this LP show why this wasn’t exactly a good idea. “Perfect” (featuring Charlie Wilson) is not the “Beautiful Part 2″ that Snoop dubs it as at the end of the song, and both “Let’s Get Blown” and “Signs” (feat. Charlie Wilson & Justin Timberlake) lack the edge The Neptunes have inserted on many of their own N.E.R.D. productions or even previous Snoop collaborations. This type of watered-down “R&G” (to use the newly coined term), plagues much of the album as Snoop professes his love for the ladies on tracks like “Fresh Pair Of Panties On” and “Girl I Like U” (feat. Nelly). But even when he reverts back to “bitches-aint-shit” steez on “I’m Threw Witchu” and “Can U Control Yo Hoe”, he still dwells in syrupy, smoothed out beats and R&B hooks, more likely to induce sleepy eyes than bedroom eyes. 

     Still when the “Gangsta” side of “R&G” shows its face, the results are better, but not by much. On the stand-out track, “The Bidness”, Soopafly combines obnoxious west-coast pimpin’ attitude with circa-’89 N.W.A. style breakdowns, making this easily one of best Snoop tracks ever recorded. But rather than more west-coast anthems in this style, instead the new DPG-Unit sound shows it’s face here. Each “Bang Out”, “Oh No”, and “Snoop D.O. Double G” (yes, Snoop has made yet another song about his name), cater to the new style of east-coast gangster beats popularized by 50 Cent and friends, with average results. Meanwhile, much of the rest of the album has a hard time holding itself together. “Can I Get A Flicc Withcu” is a disaster, “Ups and Downs” rehashes that same Bee Gees sample Jay-Z and R. Kelly used for “Honey”, and “Step Yo Game Up” is cookie-cutter Lil’ Jon that could have been traded out for anything on “Crunk Juice”. Still the Alchemist and Hi-Tek openers and closers (“I Love To Give You Light” and “No Thang On Me”, respectively), both present Snoop having fun in the Chuuuch, and you can’t be too mad at either song. 

    All in all, Snoop is at the point in his career where he can do whatever he wants, but his answer to an R&B album isn’t exactly the best way to do it. A far better representation of Snoop was presented on “Paid The Cost To Be The Boss”, and even 213′s “The Hard Way” had more satisfying moments than this. Not quite The Masterpiece its title suggests it as.