Snoop Dogg, Rick Ross, Fat Joe and Danity Kane.

the music press

tue 3/18/2008

A collage of Snoop Dogg, Rick Ross, Fat Joe and Danity Kane.

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Snoop Dogg returns with his tenth album, the genre-hopping Ego Trippin'. According to The New York Times, the album finds Snoop "obsessed with defining just who, or what, he is" including a "party-ready high roller, a street-toughened gangster, an insatiable lothario and a nurturing husband and father.” Rolling Stone digs the diversity but admits the album "grows weaker as it drifts away from head-spinning collages into generic slow jamz."
Miami rapper Rick Ross is back with his sophomore effort, Trilla. The Boston Globe accuses Ross of "recycling most of his much-lauded debut" but can't get enough of his “booming voice-of-God flow and his aura of authority." The Village Voice backhands him with: "Ross understands something many infinitely better rappers do not: his limits," adding "[t]here's something almost admirable in how unapologetic he is about his lyrical ineptitude."
Nuyorican rapper Fat Joe delivers The Elephant in the Room, his eighth album. “While Joe will never get the respect that Jay-Z gets for some reason," laments webzine Six Shot, "this album takes him one step closer to solidifying his spot as a consistent artist and a legend in the game.” UGO.com underscores the “multitude of talented producers only serves to highlight the absence of anything exciting going on with Fat Joe.”
Diddy-backed pop quintet Danity Kane drops Welcome to the Dollhouse, an album filled with "mid and uptempo pop tracks produced by the likes of Danjahandz, Bryan-Michael Cox and Mario Winans,” according to Billboard.com. Blog That Hot Ish is convinced "DK is where Diddy's money is at!" while Think 2 Twice gobbles up the "musical platter full of influences from '80s-'90s pop and R&B to hip-hop and modern day dance tunes."