RAP: Garth Cartwright
WHEN Snoop Doggy Dog strolled on to Wembley’s stage in London for Soul Jam to a collective roar – he must have felt like Evander Holyfield after taking Mike Tyson’s title.
In 1994, when his conviction for crack dealing and a pending murder trial made him a contemporary folk devil, a tabloid campaign called for Snoop’s deportation. Now cleared of the murder charge and with his new album, Tha Doggfather at No 1 on Billboard’s US album chart, Snoop played the champ and invited everyone to a gangsta party.
With his processed hair, long fingernails and gold jewellery, Snoop models pimp fashions straight out of Starsky and Hutch. As a resident of Los Angeles his take on the world is undeniably cinematic and his songs are scatological street operas.
Swaggering across the stage, he raps fluidly, his vocal mannerisms and low comedy masking how nasty his rhymes are. Snoop’s world view is one of sex, money, drugs and violence. His opinion of women is vile, but the audience joined in his chants and whooped when he launched into his anthems.
Snoop is undeniably charismatic, a rhyming Mephisto, and his appeal, both sexy and sleazy, has female fans screaming to join him on the stage. Propulsive bass patterns and hard hip-hop beats echo round the arena. Snoop and his Dogg Pound entourage treat it all like a street party. He got an ovation for his tribute to his label mate, the slain rapper Tupac Shakur, then introduced his fellow G-funker, Warren G.
If Snoop was all chilled cool, Sisters With Voices tried to raise the roof and inject spirit into the soulless arena. This New York vocal duo take the classic girl-group format, inject contemporary dance beats into it and sing. And can they sing. When the leading vocalist, Coko, wailed with beautiful weariness ”Is it just my body or does it include my heart?” you could feel the arena mount.
Blackstreet don’t mean much in England but in the US they are national heroes because their single Hot Diggity ended Los Del Rio’s reign as No 1 pop song with Macarena.
The band leader, Teddy Riley, is a studio prodigy, producing everyone from Bobby Brown to Michael Jackson before he was 25. Live, Blackstreet are a raucous blend of harmonising and pure hip-hop thump.
Blackstreet sweat, shimmy and encourage audience participation. They are old-style R’n’B rapped in Calvin Kleins, and with their energy and humour they made the Soul Jam not only the biggest but the best African American event to happen in London in 1996.