★☆☆☆☆
The foursome of hip-hop icons fail to rekindle the magic of their heydays in an album that bores. Here is our review of Mount Westmore’s latest outing.
“Four of the west coast’s best and most recognisable hip-hop artists collaborate to release a project that pushes the boundaries of the sound whilst staying true to their signature styles” would have been the headline thirty years ago. Unfortunately for Mount Westmore (Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, E-40 and Too $hort), the year is 2022.
Rap has evolved past basic gangster talk and funky dance beats, and whilst Snoop Cube 40 $hort is an attempted callback to hip-hop’s golden era, the foursome fails to provide substance or any originality that makes this album worth listening to so late on in their careers.
The album is lazy, seen first and foremost through the hooks, which are too often repetitive. On the likes of ‘Too Big’ or ‘Free Game’, the choruses are literally just the title over and over again, which is disappointing as the song ‘Big Subwoofer’ demonstrates that the group has the capabilities of putting together a well-written, catchy hook.
The lyricism is lazy throughout; bars such as “more bass than baseball” make me question whether these rappers could release multi-platinum genre-defining classics in the 80s and 90s.
Moreover, several songs feature instrumentals that simultaneously sound like something Iggy Azalea might use when creating a radio hit and an attempt to create an old-school G-Funk callback. The result is several beats which don’t fit the voices, themes or style of the rappers.
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Snoop Dogg has for too long now tried to replicate the style that gave him monumental success in his early career whilst failing to realise that it was both the novelty of his voice and delivery and the mainstream appeal of laid-back, funky west coast beats that were substantial factors in his rise to stardom.
He sounds dated and, frankly, out of his depth on Snoop Cube 40 $hort. He’s too old and successful to be delivering bars like “you want bullshit, imma let the metal blast,” and too often, his bars are too similar to what we’ve been hearing throughout his now-thirty-year career.
Ice Cube faces the same conundrum. Now a successful actor, it’s been decades since Cube was parading the streets of L.A. as a pimp and gangster; it becomes tiresome to still hear about bouncing titties and toting guns from someone who should be reminiscing. His flow throughout the album is monotonous, as is his rhyme scheme, and he rarely veers away from basic two-syllable rhymes.
Occasionally the forces on the album do combine for some good. ‘Motto’ features Snoop’s best verse on the album, amongst consistently good performances from all members and an unusually well-written chorus behind a catchy instrumental. Similarly, ‘Have A Nice Day’ features a welcome featured chorus from Dem Jointz and Jenn Em and another highlight from Snoop Dogg.
However, on this track, much like the rest of the album, it is E-40 who delivers the best and most enjoyable verses. A tried and tested veteran of the rap game who has inspired everyone from Kendrick Lamar to Jay-Z, his unique off-beat flows and ability to switch up his delivery are welcome additions to a project which is often boring to listen to.
From the opening track ‘California,’ it is evident the difference between E-40 and his colleagues. Whilst Cube, Snoop and $hort rely on the imagery of a gangster lifestyle and references to cultural attractions, 40 is much more introspective about how he has seen the state change through the stages of his career.
Yet despite this, whilst E-40 is the most consistent of the four, a few good verses do not make up for bars such as “If you meet all four, you might poop (shit)”, by Too $hort, or just the consistent lacklustre performances from the hip-hop veterans throughout the project. In 65 minutes of runtime, nothing of much substance is said, and the album begins to feel like a slog.
Originally released as an NFT in June this year with a much shorter tracklist, the foursome would have been much better off releasing this version on digital platforms, giving their die-hard fans a blast from the past without oversaturating. The result of this effort, however, is an outdated, lazy project that reflects where most of the curators are in their rapping careers.
1 Comment
Maybe it’s outdated to the reviewer but for us as fans of the supergroup this shit slap,I don’t think they made it for everyone,I think they made it for the demographic it’s intended for.