I live in a perpetual pop-cultural time lag (don't tell the editor). Consequently, I am only just watching the first season of
True Blood. So the news that Snoop Dogg has released a new track called "Oh Sookie" seems very topical to me. It's a tribute to the show's protagonist, Sookie Stackhouse. Snoop also name-dropped the show in a previous cut, "Gangsta Luv".
OK. It's a bit crap. A piece of ephemera that stays with you for about as long as Snoop spent writing it. Three and a half minutes. But it's diverting and kind of intriguingly half-baked. I kept thinking of this guy --
the worst rap ever -- as I was watching. Harsh?
Operating in a whole other sphere of meaning are The Roots. Their new album comes out this week (tomorrow!). You can hear the whole thing streaming through
their MySpace. Of particular note is the track with Joanna Newsom, "Right On" -- an unlikely, winning collaboration which probably has something to do with the band's weekly workout as house band on Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show. Also collaborating this time around are the Dirty Projectors. Delicious.For what it's worth, their previous full-length
Rising Down (see
our review) is one of my favourite albums of the last few years... and this sounds like it has its measure, upping the hooks and toning down some of the overt, 'right on' politics of
Rising Down. To wit, obvious future single: 'The Fire'. For now, check the clip for lead single, 'How I Got Over'.
That's right. Mad bongos.