7 Days of Funk

Personnel: Snoopzilla (vocals); Val Young, Shon Lawon (background vocals).
Audio Mixers: Cole M.G.N.; Shon Lawon.
Recording information: Funkmosphere Lab, Ladera Heights, CA; The Compound, Los Angeles, CA.
Even after a trip to Jamaica changed his life forever and gave him the permanent name change to Snoop Lion, veteran rapper Snoop Dogg leaves the rasta lifestyle behind and becomes Snoopzilla for 7 Days of Funk, a nostalgic project with modern funkateer Dâm-Funk. Unlike Snoop Lion's reggae effort Reincarnated, which seemed to trip over its own overambition, 7 Days of Funk, the album or maybe EP, is pleasingly loose and small. The short running time means the concept is not not overextended and the welcome is not overstayed, plus the joy that Snoop (words) and Dâm-Funk (music) are feeling delivering these nasty grooves comes right through the speakers. The producer's funky re-creations of the past are so uncannily close to '70s and '80s grooves that one expects Prince's "Pop Life" to pop out of "Let It Go" or Roger and Zapp to join in on the smooth vocodered cruise called "Ride," but there are little crooked touches here and there that suggest the indie and broken beat revolutions have already happened, as the twisted wind chimes and pitch-shifting on "I'll Be There 4U" are identifiably post-Weeknd, post-Neptunes, and post-Radiohead. Still, when golden-age hero Steve Arrington swaggers his way through "1Question?" and "Systamatic" brings reminders of electro-funksters the System and with Tha Dogg Pound in tow, this is a synth-funk fetishist's dream come true, with plenty of mothership connections for all the George Clinton fans and G-funk heads to explore. Even if this is Snoop's first album with a single producer since the monolithic, Dr. Dre-helmed Doggystyle, don't call it a comeback, call it lark, and a funky, welcome one at that. ~ David Jeffries