Despite the middling quality of his previous two albums, Snoop Dogg's sixth full-length effort firmly places this "professor of G-ology" back on top of the game. Snoop comes off surprisingly spry on Paid tha Cost, offering one of his best-balanced albums in years. His pimpalistic style is still draped in silk and fur, especially on "Bo$$ Playa," "Suited 'n' Booted," and "Ballin'." But "I Believe in You" is an unexpectedly sensitive, irony-free love ballad, while Snoop's pairings with the Neptunes and Gang Starr's DJ Premier result in two of his hardest hitting cuts ever, "From tha Chuuuch to da Palace" and "The One and Only" respectively. Combine this with his unfettered attack on Suge Knight ("Pimp Slapp'd") and this is a Snoop Dogg charging forward rather than lazily leaning back. Taking the helm at the dawn of the new decade, this old Dogg still has some new tricks. --Oliver Wang