Since Snoop Dogg’s 1993 debut, Doggystyle, Dr. Dre has only sporadically produced a track or two for his former protégé, which makes the idea of the West Coast legend helming an entire Snoop album in 2024 such an intriguing prospect. While Snoop’s claims to artistic legitimacy largely went out the window around the time that he signed with Master P, Dre’s credentials have remained mostly intact. The hope, then, was that this reunion might ignite a much-needed fire under Snoop’s ass and result in an album with more energy and focus than the placeholder projects he’s been churning out of late.
A sequel to Doggystyle in the loosest sense imaginable, Missionary is easily the most eager-to-please project Snoop has attached his name to in quite some time. His verses are nimble, delivered with a touch more gusto than the stock laidback routine he’s been coasting on for the better part of a decade. Whether trading bars with Dre on “Outta Da Blue” or gliding through groan-worthy, innuendo-laced lines like “She said she wanna eat a hot dog, I’ma relish it” on “Pressure,” Snoop shows that, while the old dog hasn’t learned any new tricks, he can still occasionally rise to the occasion.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, though, is Dre, whose production overshadows Snoop at nearly every turn and practically swallows his verses whole. Booming percussion and a tendency toward sonic overindulgence strip the beats of any defining character, leaving them loud, showy, and ultimately uninspired. The best among them are barebones and deceptively simple, not the ones that sound like they’re competing for a spot on the next Baz Luhrmann soundtrack.
While the music on Missionary is big and hulking, and flashy in a way Doggystyle isn’t, the smaller details seem to have been glossed over. There’s a surprising amount of hiss in the mixes, and a stiff 50 Cent and herky-jerky Eminem are wasted on “Gunz N Smoke.” The album’s flow suggests a shock-and-awe tactic, peppered with lyrical content consisting of weed-related double entendres and Rich Dad Poor Dad-esque odes to capitalism that both Jay-Z and Nas have recently embraced.
Where Dre’s faculties as a producer seem most out of touch is whenever Missionary reaches for the past, not so much as a throwback—there’s little here that could be called G-funk—but as an exercise in simply copying and pasting from previous hits. It’s a common tactic these days to build songs from the ashes of past successes, but the choices here—outside of “Thank You” interpolating Dre’s own “The Watcher” and sampling Sly and the Family Stone’s “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Again)”—are baffling nostalgia bait at best.
Elsewhere, “Last Dance with Mary Jane” rehashes Tom Petty’s classic of the same name, with Jelly Roll tagging along for some reason, while “Another Part of Me” finds Snoop and Dre sing-rapping over the Police’s “Message in a Bottle.” Which is to say, while there’s more going on musically on Missionary than on Snoop’s last few releases, but the only thing worse than a mediocre album that’s barely trying is one that tries way too hard.
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