SNOOP DOGG: THE DOGGFATHER
Interview by True 54 Photos by Gabe Morford
erched precariously on a tiny
wooden skateboard from the
sixties, struggling to steady his
six-foot-plus frame, Snoop Dogg
doesn't look exactly like the
always-in-control player that he
presents himself to be. There's a bus
load of people waiting for him; one of his
publicists is trying to rush him through
and get him on to his next appointment.
Maybe it wasn't such a great idea to put
him on a board.
Snoop assures me that "there's definitely a
relationship between skating and hip-hop.
"Most skaters get high and listen to hip-hop,
and a lot of hip-hoppers used to skateboard, so
they go hand-in-hand." But he probably hasn't.
skated himself since he was a little kid. Maybe
we should have settled for a couple of close-up
headshots. But as the photo shoot goes on and
Snoop gets more accustomed to the tiny tight
trucks, even the old skateboard starts to look
like a piece of pimpadelic paraphernalia.
The final straw is when Gabe, the photogra-
pher, tells him that he skates goofy-footed.
Snoop looks perplexed for a second, then
replies "Let's just say I skate G-footed."
my wife, and my homies come through-I feel
most comfortable there."
Mo' money, mo' problems
But along with the comfort of a hugely suc-
cessful rap career, there are also plenty of pit-
falls, and as a public figure, Snoop has had to
share many of his toughest personal times
with his fans. He also hopes that those fans
stay with him through the good and the bad.
it's not selling anyway-it's just hurting them.
They're just trying to live off me.
Everybody knows that the real music is my
record that has my signature on it. If it doesn't
say CEO Snoop Dogg, or it doesn't say
Dogghouse productions, matter of fact, if it
says Death Row Records, fuck it, don't buy it,
because I'm not part of that shit, and I never
will be."
"I never felt that I let people down with any of Don't hate the player, hate the game
my other albums," Snoop says, "but I felt like
expectations were high. After Doggystyle, peo-
ple expected so much, and they didn't really
get what they expected because I had just won
a murder case and my emotions weren't right.
Not only does Snoop have to deal with
harassment from former employers, but as he
grows more famous, he is continually ques-
tioned about his sense of responsibility for the
hardcore lyrics that he writes. "The only
Tupac had been killed, Suge Knight was in jail, responsibility I feel I need to live up to," he
Doctor Dre had left Death Row, so my emo-
tions were fucked up. And then my next three
records were on No Limit, so it was like me in
a Southern situation that people weren't
accustomed to hearing me in, and it was kind
of off-balance and people didn't know what
the hell was going on-it was an unfamiliar
environment."
Chuckles ripple through the room. Snoop has Escape from Death Row
once again spit game to reclaim his name as
the satin-smooth Doggfather.
Pimpin' ain't easy
Snoop is very comfortable in the role of the
pimp, flipping questions about overexposure
into innuendo. When asked how he felt when
accused of selling out he replies: "You know
what, I see a McDonald's everywhere I go and
nobody's got a problem with that, over 60 bil-
lion served, baby, McDoggy's, you know what
I'm saying?" One might attribute it to the
gang-banging environment that he grew up in,
or to the lack of positive male role models in
his life at an early age. ("My Momma was my
father. I wasn't missing a father," he says.) But,
the fact that he has made millions of dollars
and achieved worldwide fame by playing the
role of a pimp on wax makes it easy to under-
stand how the little ghetto boy named Calvin
Broadus could become very comfortable in
the role of Snoop Dogg. Comfortable to a
degree where Snoop and Calvin are now just
two sides of the same coin, "I'm Snoop Dogg
at home too," he says emphatically, "like a
muthafucker. Even more than on the streets.
That's where my studio is, and my kids, and
138 THRASHER
Perhaps the biggest stumbling block in his
career so far has been the move from Death
Row to No Limit. After Tupac Shakur died and
Dr. Dre left Death Row, things started going
downhill. But Snoop wasn't trying to go down
with the ship. His second album, The
Doggfather, was overshadowed by the turmoil
at Death Row and sold two million copies, a
meager showing for the budding superstar.
Master P was the only person who had enough
of an army to take on Suge Knight and give
Snoop the room to breath that he needed.
More than three years later, Death Row is still
reeling from the loss of Snoop Dogg. They
recently released an album of his old songs
entitled Dead Man Walking. In light of the
alleged attempts on Snoop's life at the 2000
Source awards ceremony, the title appears to
be a thinly veiled threat.
But the Doggfather takes it all in stride. "I
was sorta upset about Dead Man Walking, but
Death Row records is my number one fan.
Without me they're nothing, so they gotta just
keep relying on me to keep them alive. But it'll
play out everybody knows what the real is.
They had to pay me three million dollars to put
out Dead Man Walking, so I'm not tripping. And
claims, "is being a father to my kids, being a
husband to my wife, and making good music
from the heart and soul for the people who
love this damn thing that I do."
Snoop doesn't try to be a role model for
positive male-female relationships, and should
one expect him to? He's built a career around
being a gangster and a player. "When I grew
up that's all my Mama exposed me to. Are you
saying that my Mama raised me wrong? Or
that my Mama is bad for that? Look how I am
right now; I'm a good person, I raise my kids
right, I follow the laws... I might bend them,
but I don't break them. I do what I'm sup-
posed to do and I'm a pretty cool cat.
The game is this: it's all about how you raise
your people, don't expect me to raise your
kids for you. I didn't have your kids-I'm not
their father. So, if I say go kill a motherfucker,
and they go kill a motherfucker, it's not my
fault. But I'm not going to tell them to go kill a
motherfucker. I'm making music, I'm having a
good time. If I am depicting some pimp shit, I
feel pimpish. So, respect the pimp. If you don't
want to hear it, cover your ears and take the
motherfucking tape out. It must not be made
for you.
I make this music for people who want to
hear it, who love it, who enjoy it. I don't make
it for people who sit back and listen and say,
'why did you say that? Why did you call us a
bitch, why did you call us a ho?' You're not in
front of me when I write my music. I'm at the
house, I'm not even thinking about you. It's a
statement of how I'm feeling, so I'm letting it
out. And the people that follow it, that love it
and respect it, they get it. I don't have to
explain that to them."
When asked if it's infuriating to have to
keep justifying himself, Snoop again defers to
his music, "It's frustrating when a mother-
fucker's been doing it for so long. I could see if
I'd only been doing it for two or three years...
the people that follow it,
that love it and respect it,
they get it. I don't have
to explain it to them
but if you can't see the steps that I've taken to
better myself and to better the music... not
saying that I've made a 100 percent U-turn.
But a lot of the songs I make I would have
never made in '92, '93, or '94. Now I'm taking
time to show love, and give helpful advice.
You know, before I didn't give a fuck, but now
I really care."
Take it personal
As Snoop matures he becomes more at ease
with giving his fans a small glimpse into his
personal side. The hook for the song "Losing
Control": "I was in love at times/ I was so hurt
she made me forget my rhymes" is a far cry
from "Bitches ain't shit but ho's and tricks."
Snoop says, "It's a song, it's a statement, some
of it is about my wife-some of it is about a
past relationship. For the most part, what's
important is... is that it's real feelings and real
emotions that people go through. I felt like
expressing that instead of being so hardcore
on every song. I wanted to do a song where
we could actually say that we really want
love, and we need love, and we go through
things on that level."
Unlike the one-dimensional caricatures
presented by most gangster rappers,
Snoop Dogg expresses vulnerability. This
gives a more complete public personality.
"When I first came out in the rap game
people looked at me as a murderer," he
admits. "But, what's going on right now
though? None of that shit. Why?
Because I went from negative to posi-
tive. You can make mistakes in life.
The point is, are you going to correct
wear
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