Tha Dogg Pound

In the Death Row clan’s surreal gangsta clubhouse, Dat Nigga Daz (Long Beach DJ/producer/rapper Delmar Arnaud, aka Daz Dillinger) and Kurupt (Philadelphia-born rapper Ricardo Brown) came up as the quick-study kid brothers, helping Dr. Dre and Snoop Doggy Dogg (Arnaud’s cousin) with their projects. Nobody took notice until the pair made the band name official (the whole posse is known as the Dogg Pound as well) and began preparing its own album. Opponents of gangsta rap’s excesses ran for their pulpits to roundly denounce what they hadn’t heard. They needn’t have bothered. Dogg Food, which gets vocal contributions from such pound-pals as Snoop, Lady of Rage, Michel’le, Prince Ital Joe and Nate Dogg and was mixed by Dre, is a low-key, unambitious and only mildly imaginative replay of Doggystyle, rolling over familiar G-funk terrain with the same minimum of venom and violence. (But a lot of bad words and something else: “If We All Fuc” and the sound-effected “Some Bomb Azz Pussy” get busy with sweaty adolescent fervor.) With plenty of the wiggly bass worms and soulfully sung refrains that are the label’s trademark, the album is a functionally adequate addition to the funk shelf, but tracks like “Sooo Much Style,” “I Don’t Like to Dream About Gettin Paid” (an involving story about an ex-hustler’s problems staying straight) and the aptly titled DJ Pooh-produced “Smooth” are nothing to get freaked about. Although Dogg Food shouldn’t be judged by what it isn’t, Tha Dogg Pound’s unimpressive debut doesn’t leave much of a stain. (Best alt.rock.cred line, from “Reality”: “I maintain/Ain’t that much strain/To make me twist myself/Like Kurt Cobain.”)