Tha Dogg Pound is best known as the rap supergroup who made landmark appearances on such West Coast classics as Dr. Dre's The Chronic and Snoop Dogg's Doggystyle back in the 1990s. Kurupt and Daz Dillinger, who comprise the group, signed with Death Row Records in the early stages of their career before branching out into more independent solo work. Though Tha Dogg Pound has remained somewhat active in recent years, the duo are best known for their 1995 debut Dogg Food. Now, the pair have linked with West Coast legend Snoop Dogg, for a full-length collab album titled W.A.G.W. (We All We Got). Snoop is an early pioneer of Tha Dogg Pound's sound and a cousin to Daz Dillinger. Now that the gang is all back together, let's dive into the tracklist of this exciting new album and see what exactly the trio has cooked up.
The Album Contains The Rawest West Coast Sound In Years
W.A.G.W. (We All We Got) opens strong, with tracks such as "Smoke Up," "We All We Got," and "Imma Dog." The Dogg Pound released "Smoke Up" ahead of time as a teaser to the album, and it still holds up after numerous listens. The track delivers on the old-school West Coast style, instantly transporting listeners back to the mid 1990s. The song is quite brief, serving as an easily-digestible opener. It also proves that Tha Dogg Pound have not missed a step in over 30 years behind the mic.
Likewise, "Imma Dog" serves as a major stand-out on the album, with a bouncing bass sample and thick, snappy synths. DJ Battlecat went absolutely haywire producing this cut, with some kooky sound effects that make you feel like you're being abducted by an alien spacecraft that landed in Long Beach. There's even a moment where the instrumental interpolates some hood-style circus music, which shouldn't go hard on paper, but absolutely slaps.
There Are A Few Duds In The Mix
Despite the many prevalent highlights in the album, Tha Dogg Pound has given us a few ill-advised misses as well. One such track includes the vulgar sex jam "Inside Of Her," which offers tactless lyrics describing the female anatomy in painstaking detail. Many old-school rappers created joints like this, but they need to leave them in the past unless these OGs can find a way to speak with more nuance. "LA Kind Of Love" is another hard skip, with a nearly unlistenable instrumental that sounds like a Katy Perry B-side from 2010. While we can certainly appreciate the Doggs for trying to diversify their sound, this is not a step in the right direction.
The Album Shows Great Artistic And Personal Growth
Despite a few minor missteps, Tha Dogg Pound mostly delivers a powerful, mature meditation on their decades-long careers on W.A.G.W. Tracks like "Grown Up" offer something of an OG anthem, with lyrics such as "I'm looking at things a little different/ I got grandchildren, self-resilient/ This is how I'm living." These bars help to demonstrate that these OGs have moved away from the street and started diversifying their financial portfolio with safer long-term investments, to give back to their families.
The penultimate track on the record, "Always On My Mind," opens with some positively murderous piano stabs, as Tha Dogg Pound shoutout their lost loved ones, including Nate Dogg, BadAzz, Nipsey Hussle, and others. The track also interpolates vocal rhythms from Tupac Shakur and the Outlawz' classic track "Homeboyz." This song brings a lot of heart and touts the best Daz Dillinger verse on the project. On "Always On My Mind," Daz raps "They say, put it on the dead homies, it's just an everyday hood slang/ Sleep is the cousin of death, we in our last days/ I lost my mother, lost my daddy, lost my brother/ It's Heaven or Earth, do you know just where you're going?"
W.A.W.G. Concludes On A High Note
With only 14 tracks spanning 47 minutes of run time, W.A.G.W. (We All We Got) manages to be incredibly concise and surprisingly versatile. The album closes out with a DJ Premier-produced posse cut titled "Who Da Hardest?" This track features vocals from DGPC affiliates RBX and The Lady of Rage. Rage opens the track with some incredibly hard lyricism, further cementing how powerful her career could and should have been when she first came out in the late 90s. This track also has Kurupt's best verse on the album, which opens with the bars "Tyrannosaurus Rex, complex the octagon/ Eight sides to this genetic aquatic Pteranodon/ The template has been set, this when the sharks hit/ Composin' words of wizardry cold as the artic."
Tha Dogg Pound has proven with this record that they're more than just a legacy act surviving on old classics. This album might not top anyone's album of the year list, but it will certainly get heavy rotation. Especially from fans of that long-lost authentic West Coast sound.
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