With the rise of West Coast party rap, one of hip-hop’s most enduring characters brings the hangover.
Doggystyle
Snoop Dogg
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Coming fast on the heels of Dr. Dre’s seminal solo debut, Snoop Doggy Dogg’s Doggystyle plays like the night of partying and ensuing hangover that must inevitably follow The Chronic’s long lazy afternoon of Crenshaw cruising. Though tracks like the unforgettable “Gin and Juice” and “Doggy Dogg World” provide moments of gleeful levity to rival the sun-saturated joy of “Nuthin’ But A ‘G’ Thang”, Doggystyle often sounds stressed and weary where The Chronic was celebratory.
“It was about trying to make something so deep and so different.”
Snoop Dogg
This is all best illustrated by “Murder Was the Case”, which features uncharacteristically baroque production from Dr. Dre and a ferocious rap from Snoop that finds the normally laidback MC—who was facing murder charges by the time the album dropped, before eventually being acquitted—mimicking Scarface’s cold-blooded delivery. Doggystyle’s occasionally gloom-laden atmosphere helps to distinguish it from the glut of West Coast party rap that began to appear on the charts in the wake of Death Row’s commercial ascendance in the ’90s. It also solidified the arrival of one of hip-hop’s most enduring personalities.