Snoop versus the dogcatcher - rap singer Snoop Doggy Dog

Interview, Feb, 1994 by Sara Vass, Richard Mauro, Fab 5 Freddie

Gangsta rap is as much a genre as gangster films: there is an intent to sell records and to create a feeling of bad boys doing their thing. So what's the basis for the difference between Schwarzenegger and De Niro "killing" lots of people in their films and winning Oscars and the media's outcry over gangsta rap?

Anytime we look at rap and how it's depicted in the media, we also have to look at the way black youth in general are depicted: as criminals and drug addicts. Most of the crime in America is not black crime, and most of the drug addicts in the country are not black. When Newsweek and Time look at gangsta rap, instead of doing what they usually do, they need to look at the whole spectrum of pop culture, because to me, rappers are just taking all this stuff they see around them and twisting it and throwing it right back out there, like a spear.

What was interesting and a challenge when I was directing Snoop Doggy Dogg's video was to go in a direction that would be the complete opposite of what most people expect from a gangsta rapper: There are no guns. There's no violence. It's basically good, clean fun. With the dogs and the dog pound, it was somewhat slapstick, sort of a Keystone Cop thing. By the time the video came out, unfortunately, there were the murder allegations [police say that on August 25, 1993, Snoop was driving his Jeep in a neighborhood of West L.A., when he met Phillip Woldemariam, whom Snoop's bodyguard then allegedly shot twice in the back, killing him], and I'm sure people were really expecting the usual bang-bang shoot-'em-up. But people choose to focus on what they want to. On all the various news shows, whenever they do a piece on Snoop, they run a clip from the video, but they never mention the fact that there's no violence in it. None of the print stories even mention the video. Instead they just focus on the negative, and they do it without getting at any of the true problems.

The truth is, there is violence in urban America, and there are problems in the lives of some rappers. But it's more complicated than the way most stories choose to portray it. I think Snoop perfectly embodies his neighborhood in Long Beach, California. When you first go there, it seems so peaceful. But on the day of the shoot for Snoop's video, all of the roughest elements came out--huge guys who looked like they did push-ups all day, with homemade tattoos on their arms. A lot of them were gang members and they were drinking beer all day, and fights started breaking out. Luckily, the police were really on top of things and didn't try to go into their Rodney King vibe, because it would have been like Riot Part Two. But about thirty cops circled the scene, with three or four helicopters. There was so much drama--from the sadness of the gang violence that broke out to watching people try to control the dogs we were using on the shoot--it was bizarre and funny.

I think rap is always gonna surprise you. It will occasionally make headlines; it will always reflect how people in the streets feel; it will always have people with big egos that'll jump into it and try to capitalize on it to make a lot of money; and within all of that, there's an arena for true artists. And I think Snoop is a truly creative artist. Snoop is not a gun-brandishing, braggadocious type of fella. The sensibility he has is more like that of a blues musician. He has a southern accent, and the music he listens to when he drives around in his car is like old-school rap, old blues, and heavy, heavy soul: things that you wouldn't expect your average urban youth to be that into. It's amazing how humble and meek he still is.