Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	(63/100)
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
Blender
Entertainment Weekly	B−
HipHopDX	3/5
Los Angeles Times
Pitchfork Media	2.1/10
RapReviews	8/10
Robert Christgau
Rolling Stone
USA Today

R&G (Rhythm & Gangsta): The Masterpiece is the seventh studio album by American rapper Snoop Dogg. It was released on November 16, 2004, by Doggystyle Records, making its first on Star Trak Entertainment and Geffen Records. Recording sessions and its production for the album took place during 2003 and continued to 2004, in several of each recording studios, with The Neptunes, The Alchemist, Lil Jon, Hi-Tek, Warryn Campbell, and L.T. Hutton, among others. The album debuted at number 6 on the US Billboard 200, selling 225,000 copies in its first week. Upon its release, R&G (Rhythm & Gangsta): The Masterpiece received a generally mixed to positive reviews from music critics.

In November 2002, Snoop Dogg released his sixth studio album Paid tha Cost to Be da Boss, which spawned two worldwide singles "From tha Chuuuch to da Palace" and two-time grammy nominated "Beautiful", both which were produced by The Neptunes. In June 2004, it was announced that Snoop Dogg had signed to Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo's "The Neptunes" record label Star Trak Entertainment to produce and executive produce his then-upcoming seventh studio album.

"Drop It Like It's Hot" featuring Pharrell, was released as the album's lead single on September 14, 2004. With the production by The Neptunes, the song gained some critical attention for its very sparse production. The song essentially is just tongue clicks, keyboards and a drum machine beat, which compared to much early 2000s rap, was very minimalist. It was nominated at the Grammy Awards for Best Rap Song and Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group, though it lost both awards to the songs "Jesus Walks" by Kanye West and "Let's Get It Started" by The Black Eyed Peas, respectively. The song reached at number 10 on the UK Singles Chart and number one on the US Billboard Hot 100, becoming Snoop's first US number one single. The song internationally reached the top-ten in a huge 12 countries.

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