Ego Trippin'

Ego isn't exactly tight, but Snoop's silky sonic seduction proves awfully irresistible.

Snoop Dogg's ninth album is perhaps his most progressive one to date.

While it's never clear how much Snoop actually wrote, the ghostwriters he's admitted to hiring have the thug script down and rarely disappoint. What is disappointing is the woefully long track list, the redundant numbers, and the trimming required to keep from drifting off before the majestic closer, 'Can't Say Goodbye' with the Gap Band's Charlie Wilson, rolls around.

Cramming in more than twenty tracks, Ego Trippin' grows weaker as it drifts away from head-spinning collages into generic slow jamz.

There probably isn’t a better phrase to sum up this sleek but noticeably insecure record, which finds Snoop Dogg obsessed with defining just who, or what, he is.

Taking this stuff seriously is futile as contradictions abound is he a pimp supreme or family man? Hustler or impresario? It all works, though, if you just go with his blunted-out flow.

Ego Trippin’ has more than a few moments where Snoop glides into the future, spicing and dicing a voice that heretofore was best served plain.

At its best Ego Trippin' is intelligent, sly and full of the easy brilliance which put Snoop on the top of the pile in the first place. At its worst it makes thong-filled DVD "Snoop Dogg's Diary Of A Pimp" look like high art. He truly is his own worst enemy.

It's that he trivializes his own content--not the gangsta, braggadocio no one takes seriously anymore, but the pimp slime.

"Why Did You Leave Me' and 'Can't Say Goodbye' are some grown-up songs, and Snoop probably has a whole album of them somewhere in him. But as long as the pothead-pimp shtick keeps selling, we'll probably never hear it.

Although Ego Trippin' is far from that elusive fourth "G"--the great record that has eluded Snoop since "Doggy- style"--it's still a fun go-round.

The West Coast stalwart's ninth album doesn't entirely make good on 'Seduction''s wacky promise. [Apr 2008, p.82]

While the Neptunes' 'Sets Up' fits nicely alongside tracks like a nearly note-for-note cover of the Time's 'Cool,' the album ultimately suffers from both sonic and lyrical inconsistency--to say nothing of the misleadingly dark cover art.

Tracks like "Press Play" feature booming-enough backings, but even in the record's funkiest moments, like the left-field Prince homage "Cool," Snoop holds back.

Somewhere along the way he must have forgotten about that--there are a handful of collaborators--but the overall theme of gleeful self-indulgence remains.