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
Dam-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
Dam-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
