It's traditional to be suspicious of pop stars' ages, but not normally this way. Lil' Bow Wow is, apparently, 13, but looks substantially younger. Discovered by Snoop Dogg when he was a dynamic six-year-old from Columbus, Ohio, nowadays he works with producer Jermaine Dupri, one of the architects of the Dirty South rap sound.
And what a tremendously odd record they've made together. You'll know the cute signature tune 'Bow Wow (That's My Name)' already from the charts, but that's scant preparation for 'Beware Of Dog'. Essentially, Dupri and his protege have made a highly credible, baroque rap album, but with an attitude that's the antithesis of hip-hop standard. So whilst Dupri builds arch and stately beat constructs that'd suit any of his senior artists, and invites high-calibre guests like Uncle Snoop and Da Brat along to the party, it seems jelly and ice cream are all that's on the menu.
One would struggle to find another 13-year-old quite like Lil' Bow Wow. His lyrical concerns touch on girls and making dollars, but they come couched in a bizarre mixture of infantilism and shockingly proper responsibility. He's the rapper the moral majority have always dreamed of, one who wears a gold Mickey Mouse round his neck and whose cover proudly sports a sticker saying, 'Good for all ears, all ages' instead of the usual requisite parental guidance. On 'Puppy Love', he checks out some of the older girls in the playground but primly backs off from the rough stuff, deciding, "I'm just too young to be getting down like that."
In other words, plenty of his contemporaries would probably find 'Beware Of Dog', with its nursery rhyme intro about puppies, a little childish, in spite of the general excellence of the rhyming and music (notably 'You Know Me' and 'The Dog In Me'). And perhaps Lil' Bow Wow does too, and is manipulating his pre-teen appearance in an unnervingly calculated way. "Stay positive. Stay in school. Don't do drugs. Go get the album when the album comes out," he announced in an interview recently, calmly taking care of business.
But what can you do? He does take care of business, and fittingly for a half-size rapper, 'Beware Of Dog''s half as long as your typical never-ending hip-hop LP. Buy a copy for your nine-year-old nephew, and one for your grandmother - he's so sweet, y'know - but just make sure you have a good listen yourself, too.
