The Dawgprint

the take

After relistening to Tae Dawg's "Oozin Dawg" mixtape, I felt a lot of nostalgia to that project. So much so that I went back to his first mixtape (as far as I know), "The Dawgprint", to see if I still have it in as high regard as I once did. "The Dawgprint" isn't terrible, but I don't think it's as good as I thought it was. I almost forgot this mixtape came out in 2015, meaning that trap rappers were using beats synonymous with Atlanta at the time. Hearing Tae Dawg over the aforementioned kind of production is a little bit off-putting, if I am being honest. It works well to make the majority of songs tolerable, but nothing that really stands out from everything else out at the time. The only main songs I return to the most frequently are "These Niggas" and "Helicopter', but that is only because Tae Dawg took the song to new heights with his performances. If anything, Tae Dawg is the main highlight here because even with the then-typical trap sound, his performances, both rapping and Auto-Tune singing, actually got the job done, albeit with slightly mixed results. "The Dawgprint" is not a DMV hood classic like I thought it was, but still has its moments.