Doggy Style

THE first two amendments to the US Constitution ensure the right to free speech and the right to bear arms; but it's debatable whether the legislators had Snoop Doggy Dogg in mind when they drew up their parchment. It's always been a case of "arms and the man" for Snoop Doggy Dogg. He first appeared on the Dr Dre produced soundtrack to Deep Cover, uttering the line "187 on an undercover cop" - 187 being police terminology for murder.

When Snoop's debut album Doggystyle went on to sell five million copies and put him on the cover of Time magazine, it was conveniently discovered that he was a member of the notorious Crips gang and had done time for drug offences. He was walking it as he talked it as one of the foremost purveyors of Gangsta rap (the tough talking West Coast hip hop that was diametrically opposed to the more politically sussed rap of Public Enemy on East Coast). He touched all the usual mysoginistic, misogynistic macho gun totin bases, and suburban white middle America loved it - and in the process they made him arguably the biggest rap star in the world.

There's a sort of cultural relativism that comes into play when liberals write about gangsta rap - their thinking being that if beating up "ho's" (women) and blasting people away with guns are "authentic" and "realistic" expressions of black urban underclass life, then such behaviour, through some bizarre liberal alchemical process becomes validated. Which is quite stupid.

If white middle America wanted some more of that "gritty negro action", then they got it in spades when Snoop Doggy Dogg was arrested on murder charges in 1993. He was acquitted three years later, and two days after that he began recording Tha Doggfather, the new album that goes on release this week. It's hardcore, explicit and brilliant by turns. There is no doubting this man's rapping skills, and his early musical influences (Al Green and The Isley Brothers) are all present and correct between the grooves. Lyrically, it's Gangsta with a capital G - and you can make your own mind up about that.

"People will be shocked," says Snoop of the album, "they'll be shocked at the production, the music, the values and meanings in the songs. I'm bringing rap back to the roots, the fundamentals tight and easy. I thought through everything, didn't just do it. Some songs deal with my tail, some don't. It's not stuck on one subject or one style. I'm touching a lot of people and it makes me wanna check my shit to get positive. Rather than just write for the streets, I write for everybody now. I want to be the first rapper in the rock'n'roll hall of fame. I'm not crossin' over to them, but making them understand me ... I want to be remembered for having the seriousness of Malcolm X, the peacefulness of Martin Luther King and the gracefulness of Marvin Gaye."

THE Mountain Goats, a curious culty folk pop combo (who also do Ace of Bass covers) play Slattery's of Capel Street tonight ... The Harvest Ministers have completed their third album, called Orbit and available in January, but you can get a pre release listen when they preview it at Whelan's on December 4th... In the disco dancin' file, we find that the Ultra Lounge folk are dragging their furniture down Baggot Street and relocating themselves to the Da Club, the first and third Thursday of each month. Get your polo necks on, hang out at the cocktail bar, exchange apre's ski stories and tap those toes to the live sound of the Mondo Exotica players - and there's lashings of Burt Bacharach too. Easy listening in the area, as the youth say ... Next week: we get the Rizlas out and discuss the state of the nation with the estimable Tricky.