Above photo: Releasing another album at age 46, Snoop Dogg decided to try his hand at curating gospel music and even appeared on a few of the songs. The result was a beautiful mess that lasted as long as most superhero movies. Courtesy of All The Time Entertainment
By Jeffrey Waitkevich
Snoop Dogg – the 46-year-old rapper who gave us “smoking that bomb like THC4” – is now dropping gospel tracks like they’re hot.
Last year, Snoop returned to rap and released “Neva Left.” Now, he’s no longer running the rap game and switching to something holier instead by producing “Snoop Dogg Presents Bible of Love.”
In theory, Snoop meets church music is a cash factory.
Then you look at the album and see it has 32 tracks and runs for 2 hours and 14 minutes, which is longer than recently released Marvel movie “Black Panther.”
Then you listen to it and Snoop only appears on a half dozen songs, three of which come at the the end of the album.
It doesn’t help that the songs don’t follow any sort of pattern. Playing the album on shuffle might even make more sense than listening to it in order
This album is just too long and jumbled making it hard to make heads or tails of what the album is trying to accomplish
However, some songs are stellar.
After the intro, the next song Snoop appears on is “Always Got Something to Say.” It features him rapping over some slow gospel music to create a chill vibe that is full of soul.
On the final track, “Words Are Few,” listeners are treated to Snoop’s singing, something seldom heard from the OG of ’90s West Coast rap.
“Sunshine Feel Good” sounds the most like a typical Snoop song, just with different themes because The Lord frowns on “fallin’ back on that ass with a hellified gangsta’ lean” before marriage.
His past shouldn’t stop anyone from like this album. If anything, appreciate the boldness to try a 180 degree turn from rapping about girls, money and drugs to God, Jesus and forgiveness.
Church-goers should enjoy this album and embrace Snoop’s newest conversion, after a brief stint as “Snoop Lion,” into a preacher of sorts.
Moreover, this album is mostly non-Snoop artists. It has some familiar names – Patti LaBelle, Soopafly, Jazze Pha – but it’s mostly a hodgepodge of talented singers from all different genres.
“Changed” featuring Isaac Carree and Jazze Pha is one of the best Snoopless songs along with “On Time” (featuring B. Slade), “You” (featuring Tye Tribbett) and “My God” (featuring James Wright).
The variety will appeal to a lot of people as it contains a mix of traditional soulful gospel songs, rap music and just about everything in between, including some pop and R&B.
However, the lack of order bogs the album down, which makes the similar songs so far between that makes trudging through the album to find the good tracks becomes a chore.
The album starts slow and transitions into a mishmash of random music in the middle and then stops in upbeat town before ending on a slow medley of tracks showing off Snoop’s Christian rap abilities.
If any ‘90’s rapper was going to drop a jumbled, two-hour album about religion, it had to be the one who starred on a cooking show with Martha Stewart.
2.5/5 Stars
5/5 Question Marks
The Crow’s Nest rates albums between one and five stars, with five stars being the highest possible score.
