May 5-11, 2005

musicpicks

Snoop Dogg/ The Game

Hip-hop

Even though 50 Cent and The Game — master and reluctant servant of G-Unit — kissed and made up after, what, a week's feud, gangsta's money-makingest combination won't be together for the summer. Good. Let Eminem have Fiddy. Spring's hip-hop hungry mob gets the weary-but-wily sounding The Game, the best voice rap has to offer. I said it. Despite stretching himself thinner than his lanky, smoked-up frame will allow, the sleepily drawling Snoop Dogg is hip-hop's most liquid rapper. Snoop's Paid tha Cost to Be da Bo$$ and R&G (Rhythm and Gangsta): The Masterpiece (especially Neptunes-produced escapades "Beautiful" and "Signs") offer slinky jams and inventive, syrupy raps more intoxicating than a blend of gin and juice. But The Game is no slouch. His gangbanging The Documentary shows off a voice that takes to the hooks of "Westside Story" and its spare, stringed cousin "How We Do" like a veteran baller.

Sat., May 7, 7:30 p.m., $39.50-$45, with Young Gunz, Peedi Crakk and Freeway, Wachovia Spectrum, Broad and Pattison, 215-336-2000.

—A.D. Amorosi