Snoop: is Snoop Dogg, hip-hop's OG - "original gangsta" - trying to make the G stand for good? - Interview

Interview, Sept, 1999 by Dimitri Ehrlich

In a musical genre where "shout outs" are a means of giving respect and good boats are described as "banging," Snoop Dogg kills with a whisper. Snoop (a.k.a. Calvin Broadus) raps with a melodious, gentle sweetness that betrays the years he spent singing with a church choir in Long Beach, California. But despite his low-key style, he still has plenty of menace about him: His resume (were he to have one) includes acquittal on murder charges, several years as a member of the Los Angeles gang the Crips, and perhaps most dramatically, a successful escape from Suge Knight's Death Row Records - a feat even Houdini might not have attempted. (Knight, currently serving a nine-year prison sentence for assault, is not the kind of guy who takes rejection well.)

After several years on Knight's label, during which Snoop sold millions of records and received distressingly little in royalty payments, the twenty-seven-year-old ex-gangmember jumped to No Limit Records, a company created by Louisiana-based rapper and entrepreneur Master P, in April 1998. Snoop's first recording for No Limit, Da Game Is to Be Sold, Not to Be Told, produced by the label's in-house team, underwhelmed critics and fans alike. But for his current, chart-topping album, No Limit Top Dogg, Snoop brought onboard several veteran beatmakers - the first time a No Limit artist managed to defy Master P's Berry Gordy - like grip on day-to-day operations. Snoop talked with us about life after Death Row.

DIMITRI EHRLICH: You made a big change when you left Death Row Records for No Limit. The names of the two labels seem to say a lot: Death Row means you're waiting to be executed and No Limit means anything's possible. Has there been any accompanying attitude shift in your life?

SNOOP DOGG: I think it's a matter of getting more maturity. As I got older and wiser in this rap game, I wanted to see myself prospering and maturing. I wanted to live.

DE: Are you saying that when you were younger you weren't sure you wanted to live?

SD: I'm saying I didn't have much to live for. Now I've got a wife and kids, and that gives me inspiration to change my attitude, my demeanor, my whole way of living.

DE: After you signed to No Limit you moved to Baton Rouge for a while, and now you're back in California. What's the biggest difference for you between life in California and Louisiana?

SD: I'm more depended upon in California - like a thousand people need me every day. So it is more or less like a presidency on the West Coast, and in Baton Rouge I'm like a soldier.

DE: Did you feel socially isolated in Baton Rouge?

SD: No, I'm not isolated because in Baton Rouge they're happy to have Snoop Dogg in their community; it's like, "We welcome you and we're loving you here." In California, it's like, "We can't get by without you."

DE: Have you given lobe to a lot of people since you've become successful?

SD: That comes with the territory. You pick up more dependents when you become successful. That's how we do it in the black community; we give back to the people who made us who we are. We never forget that.

DE: Why did you change your name? It used to be Snoop Doggy Dogg and now you're just Snoop Dogg. Are you no longer into doing it Doggy Style?

SD: I'm no longer into getting done Doggy Style.

DE: That's why you changed it?

SD: Basically.

DE: What was your childhood like?

SD: Positive stuff: football, basketball, church, music - rap wasn't available at the time, it was just R&B and gospel. That's what it was about growing up - friends, family, and having a good time.

DE: You sang with the youth choir In church, you studied the Bible, and you took piano lessons. I think of you as being a mack, but it sounds like you're a recovering nerd. Did you have a conservative upbringing?

SD: Basically, my mama raised me and my two brothers with no father in the home. She presented the church and all the good things in life to us. She showed me everything except how to be a man. It's very hard for a woman to raise a man without a father in the home, but I can't say anything bad about how she brought us up. And if I have the right perspective today, I give my mama credit for that.

DE: After you got involved with drugs and gangs, people were literally driving by and shooting into your house, and your mother eventually moved out and didn't hear from you for a few years. Why did you put your more through all that if you love her?

SD: Because when you're selling dope you're not thinking about your mama or about people shooting at you, you're just thinking about getting your money. I didn't try to put my mama in danger, but when you're in the game of wrong, wrong comes back to you. So I decided to disassociate myself from the wrong lifestyle and create a positive atmosphere through rapping. And no longer does my mama feel threatened. That was an atmosphere I created that I'm not proud of, but it was something I went through.

DE: You're one of the few artists - If not the only one - on Master P's label who's brought in outside producers. Did you expect to have a struggle with him about that?