"Come on! Snoop, Snoop-a-loop! No, it's cool, it's cool, I'm cool. Bring your green hat. Let's go, come on everybody! We're streaking!"

So day two into the the blog and I'm hearing great responses so far. Some have said that the idea of it all has forced them to dig out their old boxes of discs and reminisce on the past. There's just something about memories and music that can't be denied. Who you were with when you heard that one song, what you were doing, the weather, etc. Music to me transcends so many things. I've always liked to think that music can be an unspoken language. You can easily connect with another person from another part of the world with music. You don't need to speak, just listen.

Ok too deep, let's move on. With that said, (laughs), the next blind selection off the wall comes to us from the great Calvin Cordozar Broadus, Jr. or as he'd like to be called, Snoop Dogg.

And so behold the 1993 Death Row Records release Snoop Dogg's first solo album, Doggystyle.

Clearly Dr. Dre's most successful protege, Snoop broke records with this release by selling over 800,000 copies in the first week. After the success of Dre's The Chronic, everyone was waiting for Snoop to fly solo; myself included. Now if you don't care too much for rap music or hip-hop, that's fine, but let's just step back and look at what we've got here.

Here's a kid from Long Beach, California who started off on the wrong foot. Got into some gang trouble but later found his way out due to his talent of rhyming and freestyle word flow that he had begun in the 6th grade. Thankfully Dr. Dre found him through some demo tapes and there you have it. A Cinderella story that many artists and especially rappers find themselves fall into; at least they'd hope to.

I'm not going to go on about Snoop's drug relations, or women relations because everybody knows about all of that stuff. I just want to recognize what this album did for me back in the day.

High school was an excellent time for me to explore music and I did just that. At the time I was into all kinds of music including the rap genre. However I didn't go too deep, just enough to keep up. In '93 when this came out everyone bought a copy. We'd blast "Gin & Juice" for hours at parties just like we'd blast The Chronic prior to it. The catchy hooks was what sold it, not so much the cursing or content but the 'bounce'. Still blasting this in the car the other day made me want to throw my hands up again as if I was 16 again. It was just fun.

Now in 2011 I look at this disc in a different manner. I look deeper into the G-funk audible tones and seek out what the music has to offer. Snoop was heavily influenced of Parliament and the P-funk and it's totally splattered all about this album. In high school I knew very little about that type of funk, but I grooved to it nonetheless through this disc. And I liked it! I remember the video for "Who Am I (What's My Name)" playing on MTV when MTV showed videos and I was astounded. Snoop on top of the building waving his hands screaming, "What's my name?" and the catchy hook, "Snoop doggy dawg uh awg" was great. It just solidified for me the need to purchase this CD and I've had it ever since.

Of course there are a few tracks here and there that are my least favorites such as "Serial Killa" and "Pump Pump", but tracks like "Aint No Fun", "Lodi Dodi", & "Doggy Dogg World" stand the test of time. Furthermore, look at how many people have covered "Gin & Juice" over the years? I can name a few but the most popular I'd say would be the bluegrass version done by the Gourds. That's right folks, it was the Gourds and not Phish. Leave it up to some kid on Napster to mislabel the mp3 file because he didn't know who covered the tune. Yeesh.

So all in all this album is a keeper. I think it was recently ranked #19 of the best rap albums of all time. Therefore I have made the decision to keep this one in CD form as well. I enjoy the really cheesy cartoon inside the artwork. What can I say?

“It's so easy for a kid to join a gang, to do drugs, ... We should make it that easy to be involved in football and academics.”

Snoop Dog