Uncle Snoopy

I'm not looking at this one from the perspective of sales numbers. If I did, the tone of this article would probably be even worse than it will be. Malice n Wonderland, Snoop Dogg's tenth studio album sold roughly 60k copies its first week out. I'm kind of upset by this, because from the tracks that I've heard, its a pretty good album. Not to say that I'm praising Soulja Boy, but the Pronto record was actually decent. I Wanna Rock is being remixed by everyone and their mother, potentially the new A Milli. Gangsta Luv wasn't a huge hit, but it was pretty decent, and it brought The Dream into a more hardcore territory than he had really been in before. Maybe that was the problem with that record, but after Sexual Seduction, it seemed as though Snoop was suited towards that kind of sound. Maybe he really wasn't.

Snoop didn't get, in my opinion, the push that he needed to get from his record label. Priority didn't exactly go all out. The video for That's the Homie wasn't exactly what you might have expected. Sure it might have connected with fans, but for a single that's being released, is that really the right video look? I would look for that to be done if the song released wasn't a "real" single, but a web video that you put on WorldStar. Kinda like Rick Ross' underground media campaign, turning like 5-6 songs from Deeper than Rap into SpiffTV helmed videos.

One of the main questions is whether or not Snoop has lost his touch when it comes to rhyming. Of that, I'm not sure. I don't think he's really fallen off, but I don't think that he's where he once was. Personally, I think he should take a little bit more of a backseat, maybe get into the elder statesman role that he should. Its not like there aren't people in the game from the West Coast that can't get on. Nipsey Hussle is doing his thing, and Game has enough hate in his blood towards 50 to make at least another album after R.E.D. 40 Glocc will attempt to rob like 5 more people to convince 50 Cent that he deserves a big G-Unit push.

The problem here is that how many of Snoop's acts have really broken through? Nate Dogg and Warren G did good, but for the most part Warren G wasn't really one of Snoop's artists. Nate had a much bigger connection, at least to me, but even then, he stood on his own. DPG is the only real one of Snoop's acts that have broken through and become a major force, and they're pretty much gone at this point in time.

So how do you become an elder statesman who puts on artists and really is a boss, when your track record is definitely not the greatest? It's pretty damn hard.

But let's take a look at Malice n Wonderland itself. If you look closely, the album is basically a West Coast version of Jay-Z's idea behind The Blueprint 3. What did Jay do when it came to guest features? Hot, up and comers, mixed in with some people already established, along with some fan favorites. Going through the three setups, that means: Mr. Hudson, Drake, Cudi, J. Cole, then Rihanna, Young Jeezy, Alicia Keys, and then Kanye West and Pharrell.

What did Snoop do? The same thing. First you have Jazmine Sullivan, Nipsey Hussle, Soulja Boy, then you have The Dream, Brandy and then you have Pharrell and R. Kelly. Kokane is the only odd one out, but chalk that up to being somewhat original.

He did, in a sense, the same thing that Jay did, except that Jay kinda did it better. Either that, or that's what his label made him do, and they did a piss poor job of it. Either way, Snoop's got some decisions to make. Because if he keeps making albums that do numbers like this, he's only embarrassing his catalogue, which has some amazing albums in it.