When you took the deal with Def Jam, you hit me up, all excited. Snoop is one of the best ever to do it, and he’s still doing it. We talked about how, when we got in this business, we didn’t even know people could get older in hip-hop.

This all happened right before Snoop’s 50th birthday, and eight months after I hit the Big 5-0 myself. He talked about his own personal growth, and about his legacy. At his compound, where Snoop feels most creative, he spoke about his emotional connection to DMX. We talked about their relationship, about music, and also about the future of Def Jam. This far-ranging conversation happened a month before the death of Beverly Tate, Snoop’s beloved mother. Lamar was teary-eyed and overcome with emotion. The music stopped, and Snoop declared that Kendrick “has the torch now,” and he better run with it. Snoop came onstage as a guest, alongside Kurupt and the Game. In 2011, a young Kendrick Lamar held a show at a Hollywood venue then known as the Music Box. The kids affectionately call him “Uncle Snoop.”īut Snoop is always a vital part of music and hip-hop culture. Of his standout appearances on Jimmy Kimmel Live, and his stealing scenes from Denzel Washington in 2001’s Training Day. These days, we think of Snoop lounging in a fancy kitchen with Martha Stewart. He’s an endorsement giant, for everything from Corona to G-Star RAW to Doritos. It’s the moves Snoop makes outside of music that cause us to take him for granted. But as a musical artist, he’s too often overlooked. So Snoop’s been doing this, at the highest levels, for three decades. His first record ever, “Deep Cover” with Dr. Snoop has recorded a reggae album (2012’s Reincarnated) and a gospel one (2018’s Bible of Love).

He constantly challenges and reinvents himself. And after that? Let’s face it, it’s hard to keep track of all the Dogg’s moves. In truth, a lot of the heat off 2004’s culture-shifting “Drop It Like It’s Hot” comes from both Snoop’s and Phar.’s emergence as true solo artists and front-facing creatives. He crip-walked into the 2000s empowered, and ascended to even greater heights, on his own terms.Ī series of star-studded collaborations with the Neptunes featured Snoop at the height of his poetic superpowers. Not only did that label switch give birth to C-Murder’s “Down for My N’s” (a 1999 Southern rap classic and big middle finger from Snoop to his former boss), but Master P gave Snoop a Ph.D. Many of us thought Snoop could get killed by a California crew for jumping to Louisiana. Unheard of, in those dangerous hip-hop times. It was like LeBron James leaving the Cavaliers for the Miami Heat. He stood up to Suge Knight and left Death Row Records for Master P’s No Limit Records in 1998. beat a first-degree murder charge in 1996.

Song go hard or go home