https://soundcloud.com/helly-skillz/d-m-funk-snoopzilla-let-it-go
On February 4th 2012, the world stood in awe as the Godfather himself, Snoop Dogg, changed his name to Snoop Lion in order to pursue a career in reggae and join the Rastafarian movement. By this time, many of us had already lost confidence in the once idolised 42-year-old and this just felt like the final nail in the coffin. To make things worse, a reggae duet with Eddie Murphy was recorded and many thought it truly was the end of Snoopy D-O-Double G.
Fast forward to October 2013 and Snoop Lion has yet again changed his name, however this time things seemed different. Not only was his insulting Rastafarian outfit gone but this time he also had a partner in crime. His partner was underground funk legend Dâm-Funk. Known in Los Angeles as the “Ambassador of Boogie Funk”, Dâm has been a hero amongst many music enthusiasts (including this reviewer) for the past 6 years. With Dâm by his side, Snoop changed his name to Snoopzilla, paying homage to Bootsy Collins aka Bootzilla.
“7 Days of Funk re-establishes the mothership connection between the hyper-human sprawl of Los Angeles and a higher self zooming around in interstellar space”
The result is 7 Days Of Funk, a seven-track album with bonus beats including appearances from Bootsy himself, Steve Arrington, Kurupt and Tha Dogg Pound. Although Snoop’s last album was entitled Reincarnated, one feels that it would be a more fitting title for his most recent venture.
Snoop has truly transformed himself. Instead of the awful crooning he’s been putting out for the past few years, we get a delightful array of future funk with some of the smoothest harmonies and melodies Snoop has ever made. Dâm’s beats and Snoop’s vocals fit so well together, it’s hard to believe it took them this long to collaborate. The first single off the record, “Faden Away” combines beautiful star gazing synthesizers with that classic nineties Snoop flare. On the opening track “Hit Da Pavement”, Snoop relives his gangster days while Dâm Funk channels the energy of 1970’s Funkadelic.
In other words, the funk is alive and well in LA
7 Days of Funk is essentially a critic’s worst nightmare, as it seems almost too good to be true. The only complaint one could muster is that the summery rhythms on the album might not suit a December release. But complaints like this seem petty when one’s faced with the sheer brilliance 7 Days of Funk have created. NPR summed up the album pretty perfectly in their statement saying that “7 Days of Funk re-establishes the mothership connection between the hyper-human sprawl of Los Angeles and a higher self zooming around in interstellar space”. In other words, the funk is alive and well in LA. So it’s about time for us to put down our words of criticism and say, “Snoop Dogg, all is forgiven”.
