For most music acts who have long careers they typically release an album a year in the beginning but then reach a point where they start releasing albums more sporadically. Snoop Dogg has more or less done the opposite with there being a 3 year gap between his first two albums but has never had a gap that long between albums since.
Then 25 years into his career he releases his 3rd album in as many years with "Neva Left". This was the first time he'd had such a streak.
On the cover is a photo of him from 1992 which sets the tone for the album i.e. make an album that sounds like it could have been made in 1992. With the title he's probably anticipating that people will be saying he's back, but he's saying he never left.
Whilst "Bush" was terrible and "Coolaid" is yet to grow on me, "Neva Left" is an album that sounds like classic Snoop. One notable difference though is the absence of Dr Dre.
Back when he made a point of not having any Dr Dre productions on his "Paid Tha Cost To Be Da Bo$$" album to show he didn't need Dr Dre in order to make a decent record, he did cheat a little by having just about the biggest producers at the time in The Neptunes do a number of tracks.
On this album though I wouldn't call any of the producers "big name" as such with a possible exception of Rick Rock on a couple of tracks. I would say this album is the one that proves Snoop Dogg can make a decent record without big name producers.
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