The highlight of this year’s Paris Olympics was a 53-year-old rapper from Long Beach.
Snoop Dogg, appointed NBC commentator, carried the Olympic torch from the Saint-Denis barrier. He drew attention to a badminton match between the United States and China: “As you can see, it doesn’t stop until the box drops.” She had coffee with gymnasts Simone Biles and Jordan Chiles and wore dress boots with her friend Martha Stewart.
“I was trying to embody everything I remember about the Olympics as a kid,” Snoop said in an interview in his trailer on the set of “The Voice” in December. “Respect what it takes to have a career at this level. Trying to bring my Snoop Dogg flavor to the table.”
Fans might have guessed that this is Snoop’s new surroundings. “Voice” singing contest judge. Long Beach Olympics the ambassador.
But Snoop Dogg, the MC, the laconic voice that defined Western gangsta rap in the ’90s, never left us. On Friday he releases Missionary, the long-awaited spiritual successor to his 1993 debut Doggystyle and a decades-long reunion with producer and mogul Dr. Dre.
The album’s existence is historic, a reminder of how close these two are in the studio. But after Kendrick Lamar’s “GNX” took the world south of the 10 Freeway, “Missionary” says something important about how beautifully West Coast rap can be cooked.
“Dre is hungry like me,” Snoop said. “He knows what he wants and what I want. I don’t want to rap like a 19 year old. The perspective I speak from is that of an older male survivor. “I will never lose that spirit of being a young MC, but I have to make a record about who I am.”
In 1993, Snoop’s debut, “Doggystyle,” shocked the world.
“It’s his first album, but Snoop Doggy Dogg might be the most popular rapper in the world right now,” wrote Jonathan Gold of The Times. The LP’s stories of sensual sex and violent violence were reinforced by groovy G-funk music: “No rapper has captured a beat like Snoop, sliding around corners and sitting in syncopations.” Dre’s production “takes hip-hop to another level… Organic but fluid, the air is filled with sleigh bells, sighs and contract tones.”
A lot happened in West Coast hip-hop during this era: the bi-coast gang rivalry that killed Tupac Shakur and BIG Snoop’s infamous acquittal of murder in 1996. Dre discovers Eminem and 50 Cent. Snoop plays at the Kennedy Center and invests in marijuana, technology, food and cocktails. Dre sells headphone company Beats Electronics to Apple to become hip-hop’s first billionaire.
Today, Snoop cuts the same figure he did in the ’90s: tall and lanky, with matching sideburns and a warm, charming demeanor peppered with his signature slang. He has had 11 top 10 albums and hit singles like Pharrell Williams’ inimitable “Drop It Like It’s Hot.”
But he admits that “the younger demographic doesn’t know the old Snoop Dogg. They don’t know the rapper – he laughed.
“They just know that I have to serve my entire audience, Martha Stewart’s audience. I have to make my own version of CoComelon, land of dogsbecause I was tired of my grandchildren not paying attention to me. I have to be a classy adult with them. But now I can go back to my gangsta group and be a gangsta again. “
Neither Snoop nor Dre expected that it would take them 31 years to make another full-length album together as rappers and producers. But anyone who saw them headline Coachella in 2012 can tell you that they never lost that alchemy.
“Missionary” returns to its greatest achievement: the title gives it away. It will be released on Snoop’s former label, Death Row Records, to which Snoop repurchased the rights in 2022. Dre’s massive catalog includes cameos from Eminem and 50 Cent and great samples and cameos from Sting, Jelly Roll and Tom Petty.
“It’s like Michael Jordan rediscovering Phil Jackson,” Snoop said. “Dre was like, ‘Look, let me get you back into the musical state that you’re supposed to be in.’ As far as star power goes, you’re there, but people forgot about the music because you do so much. Let me remind you of the perspective that music comes first.”
“Nobody produces me better than Dr. Dre,” Snoop continued. “But I had to go back and be a student, be humble and lead.”
Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg will perform at the 2022 Super Bowl in Inglewood.
(Wally Skalig/Los Angeles Times)
Lyrically, the album is solid at this point, an LP that fondly remembers a wild young man he was a few years later. Two important generational artists with nothing to prove but much to do.
“This is a passion project for me,” Dre said in a rare interview with The Times. “I have wanted to get back into the studio with my brother Snoop for years. Snoop never went anywhere, but honestly, I wanted him to sit down and focus on something. So I guess my focus was to show the growth and where we’ve come in the last 30 years. The songs can’t come from the street, but we also have to show a level of maturity over the years.”
Listening to the sweet bar swap of “Outta Da Blue” and dancing to the funk of “Pressure” is a throwback to every pot party you fell in love with in Los Angeles. voices that are inseparable from the identity of Southern California. On “Gunz & Smoke,” Snoop reiterates his claim to his beloved hometown: “Bullet holes in the palm trees, dirty money in the laundry / 10 fingers in the cement, n… I know where to find me.”
He drops some funny lines about his age on “Tangled Situation” – “Look at Daddy Warbucks / Huh, that coulda been your aunt on my tour bus” – and approaches today’s rap culture with a familiar cynicism: “Times a- Change , young n – he’s dangerous / Rich and shameless, he’ll do anything to be famous… Once Dogg’s been through all this / Take back and break the law, the streets under my leg.”
“There’s one thing about rock or country or jazz: It doesn’t matter how old they are, it’s good,” Snoop said. “It is not based on the past. I come from hip-hop where you have to be original, fly every time you go out and not do things twice. For me, this is an opportunity to show that I am one of the greatest.” MC of all time and I am taking advantage of that moment.”
On “Last Dance with Mary Jane,” they cleaned up a sacred Tom Petty sample as the basis of the song. Dre and Petty connected through Interscope founder Jimmy Iovine, and Petty (a cannabis fanatic) seemed certain that Dre and Snoop would one day use it.
“I have this video clip with Tom Petty saying, ‘If Dre ever tries Mary Jane’s latest dance song, he’ll have an instant hit on his hands,’” Dre said. “He comes with a lot of confidence. And you know. “Snoop is putting his entire career and everything he’s built in my hands, so I have to take care of him and make sure he presents himself in the right way.”
Snoop posed for a portrait in Los Angeles on Monday ahead of his new album.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
“Missionary” arrives on the heels of Kendrick Lamar’s modern West Coast masterpiece, “GNX.” (Maybe it’s just a cosmic coincidence, but it’s really strange that all of this is happening in our sphere at the same time,” Dre said. ). However, Super Bowl 2022 with Dre and Lamar had a scene in the song “Tripped Murals” where Kendrick sniffed around to watch the music video. with his nemesis Drake criticizing in the background.
Snoop solved it with his usual humor: “It was food. King of the West,” he wrote on Twitter. But Snoop admitted it’s a changing of the guard.
“We’re a family, so I didn’t take it the right way,” Snoop said. “He is now the King of the West. There was a time when I was the King of the West, and my job was to make sure the West followed the right path. “That’s his job now, and he’s doing an incredible job.”
The two met for the first time last year for an event at the Hollywood Bowl celebrating the 30th anniversary of “Doggystyle.” But they canceled the dates in solidarity with striking entertainment workers. “I work with these people and I knew that if I supported them, it would help Hollywood realize that we have to pay them,” Snoop said. “My voice is strong. “If Snoop Dogg stands his ground, we don’t want him against us.”
Other time markers also began to sink. Losing Quincy Jones, Snoop’s old friend and mentor, was painful. “We were very united. “His daughter Kidada was a good friend of ours before we even met Tupac,” Snoop said. “When I got my star on the Walk of Fame, she asked to come and talk and I said, ‘How come Quincy Jones did it?’ speech ‘I haven’t done enough to be here’.”
But the scariest thing of all was when Dre suffered three strokes and a brain aneurysm in March, after Snoop’s daughter Corey suffered a stroke earlier this year at the age of 24. Two health crises rocked Snoop, a devoted husband and family man.
“It affected me mentally, physically and spiritually,” Snoop said, briefly overwhelmed. “There is a lot you can do in these situations, but you can try to support them as much as possible in their recovery. I have always been there for my daughter. She’s getting stronger and stronger, and knowing that Dre and I have “Having the same friendship from day one makes me feel even better.”
Snoop posed for a portrait ahead of his new album Missionary on Monday.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
Even when he revives his old gangsta mystique on “Missionary,” talking about family seems to bring out something soft in Snoop. Snoop’s eyes lit up when a Times reporter mentioned that his mother was coming to Los Angeles for the weekend and was curious about the merchandise at Inglewood marijuana shop SWED.
“My mom recently passed away and every time I hear the word ‘mom’ and your mom is still here, she’s going to be blessed,” Snoop said. “I can throw one so she can throw DO-double-G.”
He took off his backpack and pulled out a few pieces from his personal stash, a welcome gift to the West Coast.
“This is the top of death row,” Snoop said, taking a deep breath. “Mommy, I love you.”
