The Hard Way

by

213

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Being born and raised in California, the West Coast has always been my favorite area for hip-hop. Snoop Dogg and Warren G are definitely a couple of classic west side MC's, with Nate Dogg singing hundres of excellent hooks over the years. Naturally I was excited about these 3 getting together and doing an album. And now that it's it out I can say it was worth the wait.

This album is definitely a banger. Great production and a feel good vibe to it the release date was timed perfectly with summer. Because thats really what this is a Summer Anthem. It's got a very chilled laid back vibe and I love it. Kind of reminds me of the classic album "Regulate..G Funk Era" from Warren G. The beats do a great job of fusing old-school west side G-Funk sounds and current hip-hop sounds. Snoop and Warren are also at the top of their game through out the album spitting some of the best verses i've heard from them in awhile. Nate of course sounds perfect singing the hooks.

Now this album isn't perfect. There are, to me, a few generic mainstream sounding songs such as "213 Tha Gangsta Clicc" but still, most of the songs are top-notch. I'm going to give this cd 5 stars but its probably more like 4.5. It's near perfect and a great West Coast release.

For those that don't know, 213 is composed of Warren G, Snoop Dogg and Nate Dogg. They put out this album, The Hard Way, because...actually, I'm not exactly sure why. A lot of people are giving this album five star ratings because they say that someone's finally representing the West Coast again (and it IS true that the West Coast has been M.I.A. in the rap game for a number of years). But I'm going to have to disagree with the overall feeling because I just can't get into this album.

As a few other reviewers have mentioned, this album might have been a classic if it were released ten years ago, because for the most part Warren and Snoop's lyrics and subject matter sound dated. And that doesn't really keep them from sounding like has-beens (actually, Warren has been past his prime for a while; how many people do you know that own Take a Look Over Your Shoulder?).

On this album you'll find the guys using a lot of tired lyrics to cover been-there-done-that topics, like bling-blingin' ("Keep It Gangsta"), getting high ("Mary Jane"), an ode to your block ("MLK"), and taking girls home ("Absolutely"). By the way, on the latter, after doin' a girl up, lyrics like "Then we can grub on some barbecue/That my uncle hooked up, so call your crew" aren't all that entertaining. There's also "Another Summer", which has three clichés in one: the obligatory Kanye West-produced track, the obligatory we-are-the-world track, and the obligatory honey-sings-the-chorus track.

And sometimes the titles are wack and the songs are worse ("Twist Yo Body", anyone?). There are still some other missteps too, like "Joysticc", which is a fancy term for men's goods. "My Dirty H*" is atrocious, especially that opera-style singing during the chorus (sorry, Nate). And the final track, "So Fly", is one of the most unoriginal songs I've ever heard. It's really Monica's "So Gone" with the crew rapping over it; it makes Monica's rapping in the original song sound almost good (notice how I said ALMOST).

The lead single "Groupie Luv" may not be the most original song either, but it's still better than any of the other songs on here. This album from 213 is really only worth picking up if you're a big fan of the crew or of West Coast music. For the rest of us, if you want to even TRY to enjoy this, then do like Mr. Peabody: set the way-back machine to 1993 and then pop it in your CD player.

Anthony Rupert