Snoop’s bark still strong, but no love for his crew
The eminent gangsta rap superstar Snoop Dogg turned in a good performance of his own in Halifax last Sunday night. However, his backline didn’t measure up, the sound quality at the venue was awful, and the performances of both of his opening acts were almost entirely without merit.
Snoop Dogg, a.k.a. Snoop Doggy Dogg, a.k.a. Calvin Broadus, 37, performed at the Metro Centre in Halifax on Sunday, September 13th, 2009. He was preceded on stage by two acts: the first being a drummer who played accompaniment to a string of drum-and-bass/house tracks played from his laptop; and the second being a singer/guitarist who performed what seemed to be original compositions accompanied by a string of backing tracks which were also played from his laptop.
The first artist had good clear vocals on the mic, but the substance of his performance lost my interest after the first two tunes. I also indicted him on three counts of malfeasance in performance practice:
- He performed live on stage with no other musicians than those found on the static, pre-mixed tracks on his laptop (in fact, there’s no reason not to suspect that he just launched an iTunes playlist for his whole set).
- He played completely unadorned backbeats on the drums without a single improvised fill or solo of any description.
- He played along with his laptop at seemingly random intervals and for random lengths of time in relation to each of the tracks played, showing neither awareness nor regard for what scant musical structure existed on those tracks.
The second artist deserves no further description other than his having been a unskilled singer who performed poorly-written tunes with infantile lyrics. When taken as a whole, Snoop’s opening acts were at best boring, and at worst an insult to the audience’s musical intelligence.
Snoop’s portion of the night was much better. He was introduced by a bonafide emcee with lots of pimp and circumstance (sic). The O.G. (Original Gangsta) emerged onto the stage with a bright orange hoodie, a glittering, jewel-encrusted microphone, and an angry look on his face. From that first moment on, the audience knew that Snoop came to play.
Snoop Dogg was backed up by a keyboardist, a drummer, a bassist, a DJ, and two other emcees. He took occasional breaks of no longer than one tune to refresh himself at the back of the stage, and during those breaks the other two rappers would step up and deliver. It didn’t take long before the venue’s sound started to break down the show, though.
Within the first 10 minutes of the roughly 70-minute set, it became obvious that Snoop had the only mic with sufficient volume and clarity to be heard and understood; almost all of what the other emcees said was unintelligible. Furthermore, the backup tracks under Snoop’s rapping were too loud, were distorted, and were also totally imbalanced from an EQ perspective: true, they had lots of nice, heavy bass, but there was also far too much midrange (which brings about a transistor-radio-like sound effect) and too little high range (which exacerbates that transistor-radio effect). That EQ imbalance made all of his music sound as though it was being played from the next room, and it didn’t allow those great low, buzzy basslines in Snoop’s music to punch through as they do so well on the studio recordings. His tracks often being produced by such artists as Dr. Dre, it would be understandable if the entire dynamic range wasn’t represented in the live show. But the sound quality at this venue was truly unacceptable and proved highly deleterious to Snoop’s performance.
Another major downside to the music was that almost every tune was played with a fully-produced backup track underneath it, meaning that the musicians were essentially just playing along with a record all night. Aside from how artistically banal this was, it forced the musicians to overplay severely in terms of volume and intensity just to distinguish themselves from the backup tracks, and this was distracting and unmusical. At its best, rap and hip-hop music are creative musical forms based on deeply funky grooves played by live musicians or sampled by DJs from live musical recordings. Snoop’s set paid precious little tribute to that tradition in terms of its musical production values, and so it severely disappointed the musician in me.
On the plus side, Snoop’s look, attitude and demeanour were very amusing and entertaining. He gave the suburban, mostly white audience a purported glimpse into the gangsta lifestyle, but it was also obvious that he wasn’t taking himself too seriously (after all, he has a family now and coaches his son’s football team). Snoop Dogg is also an excellent rapper in his own right, and he performs his raps with funky, rhythmic, and musical aplomb. It was only because of Snoop’s personal performance and his sincere engagement with the audience that paying for my ticket didn’t feel like robbery. There was certainly a number of significant factors that downgraded the enjoyment of this concert, but Snoop himself was well worth the relatively modest admission price of about $60.
This sounds less like a music review and more like a vendetta against the convergence of new technology and performance artists.
It might be wise to look into the way that DJs have been incorporating musical production into their sets through the use of laptops.. many artists are now actually using software on laptops to do so, not just “playing from their iTunes set lists.” Sound quality can be better at some points, yes, but times are indeed changing and there is much benefit from being able to bring your entire electronic “crate” if you will, over lugging around vinyl. Having more choice also allows for an artist to be more creative and change the flow if he or she so wishes, depending on how they feel like moving the crowd. The electronic music scene has been using CDJ’s and laptops for years; perhaps rap, as a subgenre of EDM on the whole, is beginning to catch up.
Also, as a musical review, I lament the fact that you did not mention either opening act for Dogg’s show.. not very journalistic in my eyes, and also difficult to keep me from hearing the same horrendous music. Who are they? Where were they from? How’d they get to headline? What genres of music did the second artist play?
Thanks for your comment, I appreciate it. And please be assured that I’m fully aware of how laptops and other electronics are making their way into music production. What i couldn’t abide in this show was the unmusical and unoriginal way in which they were incorporated into the act. It takes no talent from a live performance perspective to launch an iTunes playlist and then just sit down and randomly play along with it at various points. This was a live perfomance on an arena stage — it wasn’t a DJ act at a nightclub. I think it’s unacceptable not to have any live music or at least live DJ’ing to back it up. I also don’t support the concept of replacing your whole crate of vinyl in favour of cueing up tunes from your computer alone. This kills the art of DJ’ing, the art of cutting, mixing, and crossfading tunes and tracks from different records. And it reduces the overall musicality and talent required to perform. I think it’s sad if audiences won’t demand more than this.
Regarding the opening acts, I devoted several paragraphs to describing how bad they were at the outset of this post. However, I couldn’t find any mention anywhere of who they were or how to find them. They each introduced themselves once, but I couldn’t hear what they said and I couldn’t find any info online about who they were. I don’t even know if Snoop knew who they were — they were probably booked by the local promoters or something.
Thanks again for your comment — and how did you find this article?
(Edit: This article describes the opening acts in more detail — DJ Toa and Ko were their names. I can’t agree with the reviewer about their merit as performers, though — I really thought they weren’t up to snuff.)