When it was announced that Snoop Dogg would be taking over as “Creative Chairman” at Priority Records it seemed like another meaningless label job for a rapper, an excuse to get a long forgotten labels name back into the press for a split second. As it turns out Snoop is actually doing something for the label, overseeing a series of back catalog reissues. Three of these represses – Eazy-E’s Eazy Duz It, Master P’s Ghetto D & EPMD’s Strictly Business* – dropped last week, billed as “USDA Editions**” and marketed as “Snoop Dogg Approved.” As if Snoop Dogg, the man who released Tha Doggfather is some sort of bastion of quality control. He is, apparently, writing the liner notes, which could be interesting but probably not interesting enough to justify the purchase of an album you already own.

And that’s the thing. This is just another shallow grab by a seemingly rosterless label to get you to repurchase the NWA catalog. This time with garish artwork. In fact Eazy Duz It and Ghetto D have both seen the full reissue treatment in recent years. And I’m sure if we see anything else from this series it’ll be another EFIL/100 Miles combo pack or something similarly redundant. Still, I’m going to take this moment to suggest a few good nominees for the series, many of which have been legitimately unattainable for years. Because Snoop Dogg might read this blog. (more…)

Part one, in case you missed it.

How did you feel about the other artists coming out of the bass scene at the time?
I think Miami does not have a sound right now… Oh you said back then? Back then I was excited because we had a sound that you could identify Miami with. It was the bass sound it was uptempo it was what we created and you had other artists around here piggybacking off of what we were doing and they were doing really good. Not on a national level but on a regional level. Then you had 69 Boyz and they were doing good on a national level and you had Quad City doing good when they did the Space Jam movie. that was a major movie for them and that was a bass record. I was really excited about the sound and the sound was something that you identify Miami with. You know that was southern music, that was the only southern sound at the time. We were the only ones from anywhere else that was really doing something. I mean you had Jermaine Dupri in Atlanta but he wasn’t really doing nothing southern. Only person in his camp that was really doing the southern sound was Lil Jon. Not in ’88 but a little later on. The sound was there, you heard a bass song you thought of Miami. (more…)

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from Lovesick 12″ (Chrysais, 1991)

Gifted Unlimited Rhymes Universal is currently in a coma after suffering a cardiac arrest. He is scheduled to undergo surgery tomorrow. Here’s hoping for a speedy recovery.

(And please check your “Primo made the group” internet revisionist idiocy at the door. Keith is one of the greats.)

Update: Guru’s surgery was a success.