words by Miller

Snoop Dogg is FORTY!

Yeah, that’s right, forty years old. That is probably older than most of your teachers were when you thought that they were old, out of touch nerds. That is older than your parents were when they told you that you shouldn’t smoke weed and listen to Snoop Dogg. You aren’t supposed to trust anyone over thirty. Statistically, Snoop Dogg is closer to a natural death from old age than he is from birth. Middle age was the case that they gave me.

So, what is middle aged Snoop Dogg up to these days? If you get a chance to listen to his collaboration with 24 year old Wiz Khalifa, the soundtrack to “Mac & Devin Go to High School,” you’ll discover that mature Mr. Dogg is smoking fields of marijuana and letting fools know what’s up.

This is the soundtrack to a movie ostensibly about education (I’ll be honest, I’m never gonna see this movie) but there is nothing really educational here, unless you are majoring in horticulture or botany. This album is all about the ganja. Snoop Dogg smokes weed. Wiz Khalifa smokes weed. Guests Juicy J., Bruno Mars, Curren$y, and Mike Posner smoke weed. It is just one long musical Jamaican shower.

“So what we get drunk? So what we smoke weed? We’re just having fun.” Yeah, that’s pretty much what this music is all about and maybe that is okay. Wiz Khalifa is lyrically adept, but with the gravitas of a character from “Toy Story 2.” Snoop comes from a time in hip-hop where every rapper had to either shoot people or pretend that they were capable of shooting people. Yet, the middle aged Snoop is kinda past all of that nonsense. Wiz doesn’t really exist in that world and thank God for that.

Modern rappers are transcending some of the machismo posturing that made some untalented people famous and made some unbelievably talented people dead in the nineties. The gangsta dynamic is alive and well, but it is not as essential to selling records in the suburbs as it was when Snoop Dogg was in his twenties. These days, if a rapper wants to record an entire movie soundtrack and only talk about getting stoned then he can do that.

I never really understood, or appreciated the combination of being stoned and shooting people. Getting high is an inherently peaceful endeavor. Being shot must be a pretty horrendous experience, but especially if you’re baked. I’m glad that the rappers are separating those two experiences from each other. Gunshot wounds are probably horrible buzz kills.

The modern crop of hip-hop superstars like Lil Wayne, Kanye West, and that Canadian dude – that may or may not have been confined to a wheelchair as a teen – are more about the riches and the bitches than the nines and the AKs, and that is probably for the best. Wiz Khalifa leans more towards that camp than Snoop’s former thuggier associates. However, it is pretty cool that old man Broadus can still keep up with youngsters. His swagger is fully intact on these party songs and their collaboration is mutually beneficial. Snoop provides a little credibility and Wiz inspires a youthful playfulness in Snoop’s flow.

This is good stuff. However, it is pretty forgettable. If somebody popped this disc in at a party I would really enjoy it, but it isn’t something that I would search out. I guess that if I still got high, it would be my favorite, but that isn’t something that I do anymore. Maybe when I’m Snoop Dogg’s age I’ll pick the habit back up.

When Miller isn’t sitting in America’s courtrooms fighting for the rights of our troubled youth, he’s crack’n wise on this blog with “useful” information about “necessary” distractions.