The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Wednesday, November 1, 2017 — 5A

DOGGYSTYLE RECORDS

I want a Martha Stewart feature on the next one
What happened, Snoop?

We want the old Snoop back on ‘Make America Crip Again’

Snoooooooop (cue “Drop It 

Like It’s Hot” background vocals)! 
Snoooooooop! Snoop? Snoop?! 

If you’re looking for Snoop Dogg, 

Snoop Doggy Dogg, The D-O-
double-G or any classic incarnation 
of the legendary G-Funk rapper 
who ignited the hip-hop world with 
his sly voice and swagger-oozing 
flow, you will not find him on Make 
America Crip Again. Instead, you’ll 
find an artist in the midst of an 
identity crisis, so torn between the 
worlds of old and new hip hop that 
he was forced to release a project 
full of contradictions, as undefined 
and insecure as 2017 Snoop himself.

In general, Make America Crip 

Again is an EP meant to embrace 
and 
celebrate 
Black 
culture 

in the midst of racial struggle 
under controversial leadership. 
Lines like, “Them black boys is 
balling out, the whole block been 
eating,” and, “The world is yours 
nigga, so go and see that bitch,” 
certainly elicit a positive message 
meant to encourage and celebrate 
Black Americans, and Snoop’s 
motivation behind the album is 
certainly commendable. However, 
as an artistic project, the laudable 
characteristics of Make America 
Crip Again do not extend further 
than intention, and listeners are left 
with an outdated and insubstantial 
collection of songs under the name 
of one of rap’s former greats.

Snoop’s Make America Crip 

Again lacks in two major areas: 
Message and music — two of the 
most basic categories regarding 
album quality.

Given that the EP’s title is 

a play on President Trump’s 
fabled slogan, “Make America 
Great Again,” one would think 
the album tends towards the 
political; it does, but in ways that 
are at times contradictory. On the 

album’s opener, “M.A.C.A.,” Snoop 
preaches 
about 
uniting 
Black 

communities across boundaries of 
color and creed with the lines, “Now 
just imagine if we stop shooting our 
own kind / I’m a Crip with no color 
lines, that mean I’m colorblind.” At 
face value, there is nothing wrong 
with these lines — an end to futile 
intraracial crime is an important 
emphasis in socially conscious hip 
hop. However, this message hits 
a wall when met with lines like, 
“Me and my homies gangbang on 
the field,” and, “Locked in, locked 
out / Talk shit, get socked out,” 
that only seem to emphasize and 
encourage the senseless violence 
and prideful disputes within Black 
communities that Snoop originally 

derode. This contradiction, though 
sometimes common in rap, feels 
particularly odd here. His assertion 
of dominance and competition 
seems counterintuitive to Snoop’s 
moral of solidarity. 

Even the title, Make America Crip 

Again, lends itself to a contradiction 
with 
the 
rapper’s 
supposed 

message of unity — can Snoop 
preach togetherness with an album 
title built on the inherently violent 
bipolarity of gang violence and 
drug wars within urban centers? 
The album cover is also entirely 
blue, only further muddying the 
waters of Snoop’s claims. Though 
many argue that the prevalence 
of gangs in urban centers may 
provide a sense of community for 
Black Americans who need it most, 
the support of such inherently 
competitive organizations does 
not quite align with Snoop’s 
initial 
“drop 
your 
weapons” 

message — even the most inclusive 
gangs still battle rival gangs; the 
rapper’s “colorblindness” is only 
superficially encouraged. If Snoop 
really wanted to profess solidarity 
within 
Black 
communities, 

perhaps ditching the Crip support 
in favor of a more unified and 
consistent theme would have been 
more effective.

Musically, 
Make 
America 

Crip Again is forced and simply 
misses the mark. Snoop, who 
made headlines a few months 
ago for hilariously impersonating 
trap rappers and exposing the 
lack of originality in today’s rap 
surprisingly became exactly what 
he spoke out against. The music 
is just not suited for the Snoop we 
know and love; the straightforward, 
booming beats dilute the rapper’s 
charming tendency to sit back on 
the beat and swing his rhymes. 
Instead, listeners are jarred with 
far too simple and concise lines 
hidden behind slight autotune that 
lack wordplay and mirror the likes 
of Future and Playboi Carti.

Snoop obviously pigeon-holed 

himself with his latest project, 
and in doing so he became 
something we never wanted him 
to be. With an unclear message 
and an unappealing music array, 
Make America Crip Again is a 
failed project, and Snoop is clearly 
struggling to keep up with the 
rapidly evolving hip hop world. 
Instead of grasping at straws to 
become the next Future, Snoop 
should take a step back and 
embrace his role as The D-O-
double-G, the funky and spunky 
Long Beach rapper who developed 
G-Funk and famously encouraged 
us to stay “laid back.” We’ve seen 
flashes of classic Snoop Doggy 
Dogg in recent years — just listen 
to his verse on “Institutionalized” 
by Kendrick Lamar and you’ll be 
sucked back into the height of West 
Coast rap in the ’90s. The sooner 
Snoop returns to this form with his 
solo projects, the better.

MIKE WATKINS

For the Daily

Make America 

Crip Again 

Snoop Dogg 

Doggystyle 

Records 

HBO

Danny McBride stars in HBO’s “Vice Principals”
Danny McBride & David 
Gordon Green of ‘Vice 
Principals’ chat with us

“We like to design our projects 

to be able to be consumed in one 
hungover afternoon.”

This is the opinion of Danny 

McBride, the creator and star of 
HBO’s “Vice Principals.” Now 
in its second and final season, 
the black comedy continues the 
saga of Neal Gamby (McBride), 
a man determined to become 
the Principal of North Jackson 
High 
School 
by 
whatever 

means necessary. He competes 
mercilessly 
with 
his 
rivals 

 
— namely, his more popular 
Co-Vice Principal Lee Russell. 
At the end of season one, Gamby 
is shot by a faceless villain in a 
mysterious mask.

Season two picks up the pieces, 

and then tears them apart. It’s 
uncomfortable, outrageous and 
very funny. 

The Michigan Daily spoke 

with McBride and David Gordon 
Green, a frequent director on the 
show and an executive producer. 
McBride and Gordon Green 
shared insight into the process, 
the current season and how they 
got where they are today.

This 
isn’t 
their 
first 

collaboration. 
The 
pair 
also 

worked on “Eastbound & Down,” 
a comedy about a failed pro-
baseball player turned substitute 
gym teacher. Clearly, something 
about small-town high school 
administrators 
and 
teachers 

inspires 
both 
McBride 
and 

Gordon Green.

“I was a substitute teacher for a 

little bit,” McBride said. “I always 
thought it was so fascinating how 
there’s one world going on with 
the students and then there’s 
a completely different world 
going on with the teachers and 
administrators … rarely did those 
two sides get a full understanding 
of the other one.”

The duality of these worlds 

is 
very 
prevalent 
in 
“Vice 

Principals.” Choosing to set a 
story in a setting as specific as 
North Jackson High School and 
to center the plot line on two 

men “jockeying for the head of 
that world” is a tried and true 
storytelling 
device. 
McBride 

himself admits that it’s a “classic 
quest for the crown story.” For 
Neal Gamby and Lee Russell, 
the fight for Principal of North 
Jackson is akin to Macbeth’s 
bloodthirsty quest to be King.

These 
characters, 
though 

ambitious in their own rights, are 
incredibly flawed protagonists. 
Neal Gamby, for example, is ill-
tempered, 
short-sighted 
and 

dictatorial in nearly all aspects of 
his life. Yet somehow a successful 
two-season, 18-episode story has 
been created around Gamby and 
his cohorts. How? McBride feels 
like “it has to do a lot with being 
able to understand them. And 
understand them doesn’t mean 
making excuses for them, I think 
it means you can understand that 
someone is a terrible person and 
still not be endorsing them.”

Grounding 
his 
fictional 

character in reality is easy, he 
explains, because, “that’s how 
people are in life anyways. It’s 
very easy to write people off or 
have people be defined by their 
worst attributes.”

Creating a balance between 

a 
flawed 
and 
sympathetic 

protagonist is what they worked 
hardest on in the writing. Citing 
both Gamby and Russell, McBride 
notes, “we’re always trying to 
do is make these characters 
feel like they’re real, for better 
or for worse.” And with a show 
like “Vice Principals,” where for 
worse is taken hyper-literally, 
this is incredibly important.

The ability to successfully 

pull off a character like Gamby 
is a sign of good writing and 
great 
collaboration. 
Evident 

in the interview is the healthy 
balance in McBride and Gordon 
Green’s working relationship — 
as collaborators, peers, friends. 
The pair, plus Jody Hill, who 
co-created both “Eastbound & 
Down” and “Vice Principals,” 
have been working together since 
first meeting in the dorms of the 
University of North Carolina 
School of the Arts.

McBride reminisced on what 

inspired the partnership.

“I saw David’s short film. 

He was a year ahead of me, 
and it was a first-year student 
film,” McBride said. “It was 
called, ‘Will You Lather Up My 
Roughhouse’ and it ended with 
two men … taking a bath together 
and singing. I saw it and I said, I 
want to make stuff with this guy.”

They’ve made quite a few 

things 
together 
— 
usually 

comedies. 
Recently, 
however, 

Gordon Green and McBride have 
forayed into a new genre: horror.

“The world is such a strange 

and evolving — often off-putting 
— place that I think if I was just 
trying to live in the melancholy 
side of my interests, it wouldn’t be 
healthy,” Gordon Green said. He 
counters, however, adding that 
he and Danny are “working on a 
horror film [“Halloween”] trying 
to step in a new direction. It’s 
important to always be evolving 
and trying something new.”

The 
opportunity 
to 

experiment and try new genres 
is facilitated by a strong team of 
creative partners. What makes 
“Vice Principals” unique and 
likeable is the unified vision 
for the piece, and the cohesive 
understanding of each uniquely 
flawed character. The strength 
of the show comes through in the 
direction and execution of darkly 
funny plotlines. At the end of the 
day, however, it works because 
it’s created by a group of friends 
doing what inspires them, and 
working to inspire each other.

Gordon 
Green 
emphasizes 

how special it is to work with 
close friends.

“It’s cool to think of these 

relationships as family, as we’ve 
grown and learned and tried to 
challenge each other in lot of 
ways,” he said. “You always know 
with this group of collaborators 
that you could walk out on a limb 
… the world could reject you but 
your friends will always be there 
pushing you to be creative, and 
pushing you to enjoy what you do 
for a living.”

Vice 
Principals 
currently 

airs on HBO. The series finale is 
November 12th, 2017. 

EMILY BICE
Daily Arts Writer

A Thanksgiving narrative 
finds new footing in gloom

Feldman’s latest novel challenges its characters and the genre

BOOK REVIEW

It would be quite an endeavor 

to find a piece of literature to 
which the descriptor “Great 
American 
Thanksgiving 

Novel” 
could 
be 
applied. 

Thanksgiving narratives are 
usually reserved for television 
or the silver screen; most 
often, they either boil down 
to 
tales 
of 
dysfunctional 

families and their bumbling 
misadventures (think “Planes, 
Trains & Automobiles”) or 
heartwarming 
reflections 

(more 
“A 
Charlie 
Brown 

Thanksgiving”) on the “true 
meaning” of a holiday where 
actually 
giving 
thanks 
is 

quickly 
overshadowed 
by 

overeating and then passing 
out while watching the annual 
Macy’s parade or Lions game. 
With his sophomore novel 

“Start Without Me,” however, 
author Joshua Max Feldman 
aims to translate the classic 
Thanksgiving 
story 
to 
the 

page 
while 
simultaneously 

abandoning 
all 
of 
its 

conventional hallmarks.

The unfamiliar lens through 

which “Start Without Me” 
explores 
the 
traditional 

Thanksgiving 
familial 

gathering 
is 
immediately 

made evident by its main 
characters. 
Adam 
is 
a 

recovering 
alcoholic 
whose 

bygone career as a bandmate 
and its accompanying rockstar 
lifestyle left him a shell of the 
vivacious musical prodigy he 
once was, and Marissa is an 
overworked flight attendant 
whose 
troubled 
marriage 

hangs by a very flimsy thread. 
On one cold Thanksgiving Day, 
Adam has already abandoned 
yet another family get-together 
that he was invited to after 

sobering up and convincing 
them 
he’d 
changed, 
and 

Marissa is distraught by the 
knowledge that she is pregnant 
from 
an 
impetuous 
one-

night stand with 
her 
high-school 

boyfriend. In spite 
of all that, a chance 
meeting of these 
two 
imperfect 

strangers 
at 
an 

airport 
hotel 

restaurant is the 
beginning of their 
unlikely 
odyssey 

across 
New 

England 
as 
they 

both 
attempt 
to 

come to terms with 
their past and make sense of 
the future that lies ahead of 
them.

Marissa’s 
attempt 
to 

chauffeur Adam back to his 
family is quickly thrown off 
course by a confrontational 

run-in with Adam’s sister at 
a gas station, where Adam is 
directly convinced that no one 
in his family was ready for him 
to appear in their lives again. So, 
the pair decide to try their luck 
with the Thanksgiving meal 
that Marissa has been dreading 

to 
attend. 

The 
following 

extended 
scene 

at the Russells’ 
(Marissa’s 
husband’s family) 
progressively 
ramps 
up 
in 

tension, 
yet 

feels 
somewhat 

contrived 
just 

for 
the 
sake 

of 
discussing 

complex subjects 
like race, gender, 

sexuality and class. Marissa’s 
in-laws are quite a unique couple 
(a Black man and a Jewish 
woman firmly ensconced in 
the upper class), but it appears 
that Feldman only writes in 
these diverse characters and 

their interactions with Marissa 
and Adam to shoehorn in 
dialogue that addresses the 
aforementioned 
contentious 

topics. 
Although 
the 
novel 

falters at points like those, it 
shines when it shifts its focus 
toward Adam and Marissa’s 
attempts to deal with questions 
of love and choice while they 
are both at rock bottom.

The 
best 
scenes 
in 

“Start 
Without 
Me” 

highlight 
characters 
whose 

Thanksgivings are as glum 
as those of he two main 
characters: 
a 
disgruntled 

waitress whose mother just 
passed away, a husband who 
would rather spend his holiday 
camped out in front of Walmart, 
Marissa’s deadbeat mom and 
her new pothead boyfriend. 
Even the Russells barely act 
like a family, as they would 
rather find a random man on 
Craigslist 
to 
prepare 
their 

meal and have a photographer 
take faux candids instead of 
actually loving each other and 

coming to terms with what it 
truly means to be a family. By 
concentrating on these flawed 
characters instead of the cheery 
and happy people that normally 
populate Thanksgiving stories, 
Feldman is able to nail themes 
of loneliness and depression by 
juxtaposing them with a holiday 
centered around togetherness.

The dichotomy between two 

of 
the 
Thanksgiving 
meals 

consumed during the novel — 
an 
undercooked, 
pre-made, 

so-called feast and a cold bucket 
of KFC — are illustrative. 
People can either maintain an 
insecure façade while brushing 
their problems under the rug, 
or they can embrace who they 
really are and proudly display 
that person to others, especially 
their family members. While 
“Start Without Me” wraps up 
a little too quickly and neatly 
without fully developing its 
ideas, it is an introspective read 
that explores the struggles to 
know and to accept one’s true 
self.

ROBERT MANSUETTI

For the Daily

“Start Without 

Me”

Joshua Max 

Feldman

William 
Morrow

October 17

ARTISTS IN PROFILE
ALBUM REVIEW

