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Review

Snoop Dogg puts on a show, that's for shizzle

By SEAN DALY
Published January 15, 2006

ST. PETERSBURG -- Listen up, nephew: If you want to hang with rapper Snoop Dogg, you better plan on staying up late. Mr. D-O-DOUBLE-G will get down when he's good and ready.

At approximately 10:48 p.m. at Jannus Landing on Friday -- after a myriad of lackluster opening acts, after a bizarrely provocative performance by a prepubescent dance troupe, after a winded DJ just about ran out of vinyl -- the Doggfather finally sauntered onstage, bejeweled mike in hand, an umpteen-strong posse spread out all around him.

A restless, near-capacity crowd of some 1,500 -- whose chants of "We want Snoop!" morphed into surly boobirding around the 10:30 mark -- about-faced and cheered for the 6-foot-3 Long Beach, Calif., star, as he opened with the likably earnest Ups & Downs, a Bee Gees-sampled celebration from 2004's R&G (Rhythm & Gangsta): The Masterpiece.

Over the course of his 70-minute show, Snoop's lazy-river rhyming style was often drowned out by the rib-rattling G-funk beats being summoned by not one but two mad-spinning turntablists. For instance, the sinfully delicious Gin & Juice, produced by Snoop mentor Dr. Dre, was recognizable only because the entire crowd recited the rolling chorus.

Despite the shoddy sound, however, the tightly packed crowd partied hard, shaking its collective groove thing in a constant sway. That's the power of Snoop, of course: The 33-year-old has forged a winning persona as a jokin', tokin' party hound, whose stage presence is undeniable, and whose charm is overflowing. When a gray-templed family member shimmied across the stage with some old-school moves, Snoop grinned ear to ear: "Look at that, Uncle Junebug is stealing the show!'

Underneath all that puff-puff-pass posturing, the man born Calvin Broadus is also a shrewd self-promoter, a guy with an uncanny ability to mute negative headlines (in 2005, he was accused of raping a makeup artist; the suit was dropped) and hype positive ones (his role as Pop Warner football coach, his role as Huggy Bear in the Starsky & Hutch remake). Heck, he even introduced a whole new schoolyard lexicon: "izzle" speak.

First and foremost, though, Snoop is a gifted MC with a sharp ear for hooks -- his own and those of his peers. He gave some West Coast flavor to 50 Cent's P.I.M.P. He also showed bicoastal love by covering both late rivals Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G.

The hits got bigger as the night wore on: Snoop dedicated 2002's Beautiful, featuring that cooing recorded hook from head Neptune Pharrell, to "all the ladies." Clicking-clacking smash Drop It Like It's Hot dripped with 'tude. And show-closer What's My Name?, the 1993 Top 10 song that made Snoop a star, had the crowd pogoing to the bow-wow-wow beat.

When Snoop called its quits at the stroke of midnight, the show felt like it was just getting started. But maybe that was just as well: Mother Nature was starting to drizzle on Snoop's fashizzle anyway.

Sean Daly can be reached at sdaly@sptimes.com or 727 893-8467. His blog is at www.sptimes.com/blogs/popmusic

[Last modified January 25, 2006, 15:35:17]