| And in fact he was. Maybe
this isn’t as radical as it seems to me at the moment; I’m
sure there’s precedent for it. I’m certain I’ve
heard whole verses cribbed when they seemed to fit into some other
song. (There’s a highly unfortunate nu-metal cover of "The
Humpty Dance" which I can’t really talk about because
the subject depresses me severely.) But Snoop’s cover of "Paid
in Full" is a proper cover version: a version of the original
song that retains all the original’s flavor while justifying
itself by adding intangibles – the mood, the tone, the stance
of the person doing the cover. In Snoop’s case, this involves
dishing out the lyrics with his quietly aggressive phrasing in place
of Rakim’s almost contemplative delivery. In the original,
Rakim refers to "fish/which is my favorite dish," but Snoop
changes that to "chicken wings/which is my favorite thing." There
are a few differences of this sort, which lend a playful charm to
the cover. |
|
