Like Law & Order stalwart Ice-T and Are We There Yet? star Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg is proof that one generation's corrupter of morals is the next's national treasure. The erstwhile "evil bastard" (Daily Star, 1994) is now a cosily ubiquitous pop presence, buried up to his neck in sand (Katy Perry's California Gurls video) or dolled up like he is advertising Admiral insurance (Gorillaz' Welcome to the World of the Plastic Beach). Approaching 40, Snoop is almost as cuddly as his comic-strip namesake.
Still cadaverously thin and sprouting his trademark braids, he makes light of his former notoriety. "I have yet to do a crime in the United Kingdom," he smirks. "I ain't fucking with your bobbies and shit." His subsequent chant of "Fuck the police!" feels half-hearted because Snoop was never especially rebellious. Neither a hard-boiled gangsta, a cultural striver like Jay-Z or a psychological car crash like Eminem, he's a pleasure-seeker, pure and simple: little more complicated than the figure he presents in Gin and Juice, happy with a drink and a smoke and "my mind on my money and my money on my mind". His laidback, almost feminine delivery defuses his lyrical machismo. Even a song as deeply dubious as Ain't No Fun (If the Homies Can't Have None) has the many women in the audience cheerfully singing along.
Snoop's essential shallowness means his recorded output has traced a downhill trajectory since 1993's classic Doggystyle, but it makes him a reliable showman. Hip-hop shows are infamous for muddy sound, truncated songs and unfocused frontmen, but Snoop has raised his game. Early hits such as Deep Cover are satisfyingly fat and vibrant showcases for his lazy, lizardy flow and his signature exclamation, a sleepy, elongated "yeeyuh". And he does not just mine his own past but hip-hop's in general, with homages to Tupac, Biggie and his late friend Nate Dogg, and a potent blast of House of Pain's evergreen Jump Around.
It is just as well, because the newer material is rotten. The self-parodically lubricious Sensual Seduction could be a Flight of the Conchords collaboration, and Sweat is every bit as calamitous as you would expect a song written for Prince William's stag night and remixed by David Guetta to be. Maybe this qualifies as his first crime in the United Kingdom. He quickly restores goodwill by ending on old favourites Drop It Like It's Hot and What's My Name and a gushing profession of his love for "London, England". Does London, England love him back? Yeeyuh.
