Snoop Revisits His Origins.

Seasoned MCs are the ones holding down today’s hip hop game. Jay-Z has entered a new venture with Live Nation and now Snoop Dogg is following him into the executive world. The Doggfather has assumed the position of ’creative chairman’ at the reinvigorated Priority Records. Nevertheless, Snoop isn’t giving up his music. He’s back this summer with another blockbuster  -  Malice N Wonderland.

Calvin Broadus has a knack for slyly reinventing himself. On last year’s Ego Trippin’, Snoop indulged his fervour for ’80s nostalgia, dipping into electro-funk, and Malice N Wonderland, his tenth album, is different again. This time Snoop puts his pawprint on the electro-hop phenomenon, collaborating with The-Dream and Christopher "Tricky" Stewart on the signature single ‘Gangsta Luv’. "Me and The-Dream, we met about a year-and-a-half ago," Snoop recollects. "I told him, Look here, man, I want you to make me a record  -  you know, one of those records that you always make, one that really touches the females, but I [also] wanted it to be gangsta. So he went to the laboratory and [‘Gangsta Luv’] is what he came up with. He came up with the track and the hook. It was easy to put the words to it once I heard the hook and the melody. It was a beautiful thing. It’s that ’gangsta luv’. The-Dream came through and made a certified banger. It’s blowin’ up right now on the radio and the video is hot. I feel like it’s what is missing from the radio right now and from the music world and just in general. I can’t sell you on it. Just listen to it. Turn the radio on!"  

Malice N Wonderland is, in some ways, a reflective record. Snoop revisits his origins  -  the underbelly of Long Beach, California  -  but then contemplates where he is now and looks to the future. "I start off with so much malice in my heart when the record kicks in. By the time I get to the end of the record, I’m in Wonderland. I’m feeling good about life. I’m celebrating  -  happy about my wife, my kids, life in general. It’s just a rollercoaster of what I’m going through as I speak. I’ve always juggled the line, should I make a gangsta record? ’Cause I could kill all you rappers if I wanted to. Then I have to sit back and say, I’m a business, so I’m gonna make records that can help me in this business. I have to make radio records but, when I don’t care, y’all in trouble." Indeed, Snoop is married to his childhood sweetheart Shante and they have three children to feed  -  and to guide. 

The West Co’ legend could retire tomorrow and still be assured a place in the history of pop culture. Snoop has generated his own mythology. Dr Dre, the Godfather of G-funk, discovered the young gun who’d define the second wave of gangsta rap  -  hip hop’s counterpart to punk-rock. Then known as Snoop Doggy Dogg, he stole the show from his mentor on the seminal The Chronic, Dre’s first album, post-NWA. Snoop’s rap persona was deceptively smooth, his streetwise humour mitigating the latent menace. The MC furnished his own Death Row debut, Doggystyle, with Dre’s production input, in 1993. However, Snoop’s career nearly unravelled. The sometime Crip affiliate was arrested along with his bodyguard for murder. It wasn’t just Snoop on trial, but hardcore rap. Snoop was acquitted, but the widely-publicised case served as a wake-up call. In fact, Snoop was always a reluctant participant in the bi-coastal hip hop beef that embroiled the Death Row and Bad Boy labels and culminated in the drive-by deaths of Tupac Shakur and The Notorious BIG. After 1996’s Tha Doggfather, Snoop sought a contractual release from Death Row  -  eventually going with Master P’s Southern (and neutral) stable No Limit. (In the process he abandoned the ’Doggy’.) Three albums later, Snoop signed to Priority for Paid Tha Cost To Be Da Bo$$, working with The Neptunes. He’d subsequently align himself with their Star Trak roster. In recent years, Snoop has been responsible for contemporary crossover favourites such as ‘Drop It Like It’s Hot’, ‘Signs’ (with Justin Timberlake!) and ‘Sensual Seduction/Sexual Eruption’. 

Malice N Wonderland, too, houses potential classics  -  among them the club banger ‘I Wanna Rock’, sampling Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock’s ‘It Takes Two’. Snoop dedicates it to the exploding West Coast dance movement of jerkin’. Lil Jon raves, Southern-style, with Snoop on ‘1800’.

Soulja Boy Tell ’Em jumps on the auto-dance ‘Pronto’. It’s not all bangin’, or ’macho’, hip hop, either. Snoop teamed with Teddy Riley on Ego Trippin’ and the New Jack Swing don returns for the R&B ‘Different Languages’ (featuring hip soulstress Jazmine Sullivan)  -  a song for the homegirls. The Neptunes slink into the studio for ‘Special’. And veteran Cali beatmaker Battlecat flips The Romantics’ New Wave ‘Talking In Your Sleep’ for the vintage G-funk ‘Secrets’. Above all, Snoop is keeping it fresh, while not ditching his ol’ skool flava. "I got young homies on there  -  some people that are real hot right now," he says. "If you make good shit, I will make sure I get down with ya. You can’t deny great music. If you brought your A game, then I’m going to make sure I bring my A+ game, too. I got R Kelly, Soulja Boy, The-Dream, Brandy, Pharrell, Nipsey Hussle, Problem, Lil Jon, Jazmine Sullivan...it’s a big party."

Snoop is not just a (cred) pop star  -  he’s also a Hollywood commodity. He played a now iconic role in Starsky & Hutch as Huggy Bear Brown. Then there’s his foray into reality TV with the entertaining Snoop Dogg’s Father Hood. But Snoop has a not-so-secret hankering to portray a vampire, even namedropping True Blood in Gangsta Luv. (Are vampires the new ’G’s’?) "I love that show," he enthuses. "I wish I could be on it. I’d be a hell of a vampire, don’t you think? So what’s happenin’? True Blood, get at me  -  Snoop Dogg wants to be a vampire."

Snoop is a natural born entrepreneur. Priority will mark its 25th anniversary in 2010 and the MC means to spotlight its rap legacy, the label’s back catalogue encompassing everyone from Ice Cube to Master P. "My plan is to bring back the ’Official Snoop Dogg-Stamped’ Priority albums and make them [again] stand the test of time that they have already stood. Remixed and refashioned  -  the shit is going to continue to bang until the wheels fall off. People don’t know how many classic albums are in that building  -  and I’m going to make sure that they recognise."

And Snoop will inevitably flex his A&R skills. "I haven’t started off trying to sign no new acts right now. My main focus is making sure my record comes through that channel the appropriate way so I can set a standard. It’s like what we did with Death Row back in the day. We knew how dope everybody was, but until we got [Dr Dre’s] Chronic album off the ground  -  that was the foundation. This Malice N Wonderland is my Chronic album to get this foundation off the ground. Once we do that, we’ll look to see if there’s somebody worth signing or somebody that’s blowing up on the West Coast, like Nipsey Hussle or somebody doing their thing, that might need to be taken under my wing. That’s what I’m gonna provide."

Snoop remains Top Dogg, but he’s not preoccupied with his longevity  -  or the past. "Ask me [about that] in 2012 when it’s 20 years... [But] it feels good and I’m going to continue to rep it all day, everyday."

Malice ‘n Wonderland is out now through EMI Music.

ENDS