With a successful career spanning well over ten years in the game, Snoop Doggy Dogg has more than paid the cost to be the boss. The Boss ain’t just selling woof tickets, he’s sounding off about the state of Hip-Hop and who and what needs to be eliminated for the perpetuation of the movement. He holds no bones about it as he speaks in an overly candid manner about Suge Knight, Pac, Nas, Ja Rule, Dr. Dre and even resurfaces some coastal criticism. AllHipHop.com caught up with the D-O double G as he was stepping out of the booth at LA’s Record Plant recording studio. With a preacher’s fervor and a gangster’s lament, get a glimpse of Snoop’s in-depth commentary towards the issues that everybody wonders about.
AllHipHop.com: When you’re in the booth you look like your having a ball, do you imagine you’re on stage performing?
Snoop: (Nods head) When I listen to it back in my headphones that s**t be sounding good as a mah-f**ka. It make a n***a feel like he listenin’ to Sam Cooke or something.
AllHipHop.com: Your style is sounding soulful even for Hip-Hop. How would you say it’s changed since the beginning of your career?
Snoop: I think I’m more melodic, more instrumental, more musical. Going back to my background from the church.
AllHipHop.com: You’re in that booth like your trying to bring the West back or something, What’s that all about?
Snoop: I got to.
AllHipHop.com: All I’m saying is what took you so long?
Snoop: That’s because I don’t’ get no help. Dr. Dre is the Godfather. But remember, I was an under boss. I came up under Dr. Dre, ’til I crept up to the top and moved away and did my thang. See what I’m sayin? He ain’t about helping the West and that ain’t no disrespect. Eminem ain’t from the West, 50 Cent ain’t from the West. Do I need to say more?
AllHipHop.com: Who all have you helped in the West?
Snoop: Tha Eastsidaz, Doggy’s Angels, Everybody that come out the West come f**k with me, Suga Free all of em. They get on my s**t and I help to get them exposure. If I don’t do it ain’t nobody else gonna do it. Look at all my records even when I was on No Limit. I always brought n***as with me, like come on ‘cuz, come get on this. Even the girls, I put the first West coast girl group in the game, three females. And that wasn’t easy to do because they didn’t even get along, so imagine that.
AllHipHop.com: I know we get it on the West but what is it about Snoop that makes him so universal?
Snoop: I think people understand me, me as a person and what I went through because I kept it on the plate. I never hid nothing. I was never in the closet. I smoked dope, I gang banged, I did this, I did that; whatever I did it was always out. It was never like, "I didn’t know Snoop smoked weed. I didn’t know he did all kinds of stuff." When you real with the people they give you that back. And I always opened myself up to them and shared that with ’em. I always gave it up uncut even when I first got with Dre I was like, "Cuzz when I’m writing for you I’mma write the realest s**t I can think of. Sometimes I might be involved in it sometimes I might not." But when he gave me the right to do it, I just been on ever since like, "F**k it." I gotta be open and real with people because when you lie and fake then when they find out, they hate you.
AllHipHop.com: Speaking of gangbanging, you know it’s the 10-year anniversary of the Crips and Bloods gang truce signing in Los Angeles?
Snoop: Yes, I was a part of it.
AllHipHop.com: How do you feel about it now?
Snoop: I think it set a mark. It put in everybody’s head that it’s time to make a change. I don’t think it’s as strong as it was 10 years ago, but it’s effective. You have more respect now. By that day happening it taught us respect. It taught us how to see a Blood and say, "What’s up homie?" and not just come at him like, "What up Cuzz?" Now our delivery and our lingo is more respectful. If 13 Crips see 5 Bloods they not just automatically gonna try to f**k em up, they gonna give ’em the respect of the fact that that day happened 10 years ago. It’s just real like that because I know I f**k with more Bloods now, but before the peace treaty – none.
AllHipHop.com: New York factions are supposed to be incorporating the truce as well.
Snoop: Them n***as out there are fake. We’re at a club in New York last week and they put on that Lil Flip song that goes, "Flip, Flip, Flip" and by the end of the song I had the whole club yellin, "Crip, Crip,Crip!" Even the red rags. I bulls**t you not.
AllHipHop.com: Why doesn’t West coast Hip-Hop get the acclaim that it should?
Snoop: It’s easy to steal from a West coast n***a. Look at the East right now, they stealin all our music, all our words, and our lingo. They gangsta’s now, they wearing Chuck’s now, they wearin braids now, they saggin’ now. Everything we was doin ten years ago, they doing now. But when it comes to us getting play they hide us and take our s**t. We are easily infiltrated because we’re not unified. If we was unified it wouldn’t happen. If we had a n***a’s coalition out here on the West coast any n***a that violated or took our s**t we’d f**them n*gas up or get at ‘m quickly. But since it’s so unorganized, n***as don’t mind, they just like they ain’t takin’ my s**t so whatever.
I’m the only n***a that really go out to New York like that. And the last time I was there I had to check the radio station and I told them, "Hot 97 ain’t sh*t ’cause they don’t play no motherf**kin West coast music, so f**k them!" The only way I got played was when I was with Dr. Dre but as a solo artist y’all don’t play my s**t? You don’t play the Eastsidaz, you don’t play my people’s s**t? But every mahf**ka from the East gets play on Power 106 and the Beat, even that wack ass Ja-Rule and Bobby Brown [joint]! All that bulls**t y’all put out we accepted it, we played if for y’all we gave y’all n***as a shot. If you don’t give us an opportunity to be played or heard then you just taking our s**t and stealing, it but n***as from the West don’t know that because it’s a dream for a n***a to go to the East coast. The average n***a from [Los Angeles] can’t just go to [New York] and hold his own as a rapper, but now you see these young n***a’s like Game and the young homies that’s rappin’ coming out rippin’ them n***as up and what happens? The East snatches ’em up and says come on over here because the West coast n***a’s ain’t strong enough to put [him] in the game. Dre had him but Dre didn’t do nothin’ with him.
AllHipHop.com: How do we change that?
Snoop: We start a coalition. And we get rid of Suge Knight No. 1 (snaps his fingers) for good, because that’s a bump in the road and when you got a negative bump in the road it makes it hard. When he gets [released from prison] n***a’s get scared to go places and n***as get timid, instead of us being on a peaceful musical movement. If Death Row was dope, n***a you wouldn’t have to be on that negative s**t. Make good music and that keeps you alive not hating on n***as destroying a motherfu**as reputation and tryin’ to bring a n***a down. Try to bring a n***a up because the n***a you bringing down is like, "Damn why this n***a trying to bring me down and he tied into people you don’t even know?" And while you hatin’ on him you don’t realize that everybody that loves him, hates you. But the way I looked at it a long time ago, my fans are my fans. Say "F**k Snoop" around one of my fans, see what they do.
AllHipHop.com: Yeah, Snoop fans are like Laker fans, they carry knives.
Snoop: It don’t matter Laker fans, Raider fans, whoever your n***a is, you ride with ’em to the fullest. If a n***a disrespect your peoples, you feel disrespected. This is my homie Half Dead right here, a n***a can’t say nothing foul about Snoop Dog in front of him. In jail, on the street, no matter where he at. I don’t give a f**k if we ain’t cool, a n***a can’t say nothing foul around him, that’s just how the game is bred and I feel like that too. Like Dr. Dre, I don’ t let n***as talk bad about Dr. Dre. I can talk bad about him but y’all can’t.
Lil’ Half Dead: And the cold part about it is, I wouldn’t let nobody talk bad about [Dre] just cause he [Snoop] love him.
Snoop: Betta not!