OK, so I want you to picture a scene. It's the
Paris 2024 Olympics. You're watching the equestrian
events, you know, dressage. Like the height of
class, super refined. Exactly. It's all about
discipline. It's quiet. It's focused. And sitting
there right in the front row wearing a full riding
helmet, an equestrian blazer, is a guy who maybe
30 years ago was basically the face of America's
biggest cultural nightmare. It's such a striking
image. It really is. It almost creates this cognitive
dissonance, doesn't it? If you showed that picture,
just that single frame, to a suburban parent
in, say, 1993, they wouldn't just be confused.
I think they might actually panic. They might
panic, yeah. And, of course, we're talking about
Calvin Cortes, our broadest junior. Better known
to the entire planet as Snoop Dogg. And the easy
narrative here, right, the one you always see
in the headlines is that he sold out or he softened
up. But we've got this this whole stack of sources
here today. I'm talking court transcripts, business
filings, discographies, old interviews. And they
all suggest something way, way more complex is
going on. Oh, absolutely. The sellout narrative
is just it's lazy. It completely misses the actual
mechanism of what happened here. Right. We're
not just looking at a rapper who got a little
older and decided to, you know, bake some cookies
on a TV show. Yeah. This is a legitimate. case
study in brand evolution, in crisis management,
and really in the history of modern pop culture
itself. So what's our mission today? What are
we trying to attack? I think our mission is to
analyze how a teenager from Long Beach who is
staring down a first degree murder charge and
a very real possibility of life sentence. how
that person transformed into this ubiquitous,
almost universally beloved American mascot. It
is genuinely wild when you just list it all out.
I mean, he's a character in Call of Duty. He's
analyzing sports for NBC. They got a cooking
show with Martha Stewart. He's a legit tech investor.
And yet, and this is the craziest part, he still
somehow maintains this street credibility. Yes.
That kind of cred usually just evaporates. It's
gone the second an artist signs a big corporate
deal. But for him, it sticks. So that's the core
tension, right? That's what we need to explore
today. How did he cross that chasm? We're going
to unpack this whole evolution from the deep
cover era right into the boardroom. And we have
to be thorough because the details of how he
pulled this off, they're fascinating. Yeah, they
really are. So let's start at the very beginning.
We have to go back to the soil that grew him.
Long Beach, California, October 20, 1971. The
setting is absolutely crucial. But even before
that, we have to look at the family dynamics
because they really do set the stage for everything
that comes later. Okay. So he was born to Beverly
Tate and Vernell Varnado. Now, Vernell, that's
his biological father, was a Vietnam veteran
and, interestingly, a singer. Ah, so the musical
DNA was there from day one. It was definitely
there, but the father figure himself wasn't.
Vernell left the family really early on, I think
only about three months after Snoop was born.
Wow. So the name the world knows him by, Broadus,
that actually comes from his stepfather, Calvin
Cortisar Broadus Sr. That's the man who raised
him and gave him his name. But the name that
made him famous, Snoop, that came from his mother,
didn't it? It did. And I love this origin story
because it's so, it's just so disarmingly innocent.
She started calling him Snoopy because she honestly
thought he looked like the little beagle from
the Peanuts cartoon. That's amazing. The guy
who would become the poster child for gangster
rap was literally named after a cartoon dog.
It kind of speaks to a softness, you know, that
was always there, maybe buried underneath a public
image. Right. And we absolutely have to talk
about the church. This is a detail that gets
glossed over so often in the, you know, the tough.
Gangster biographies. He was raised Baptist.
Okay. He spent a huge chunk of his childhood
singing and playing piano at the Golgotha Trinity
Baptist Church. And his mother was in the choir,
right? She was the one who introduced him to
all that old school R &B. Exactly. And this is
so critical for understanding his musical style
later on. You have to ask, why does Snoop sound
so different from almost every other rapper in
1992? It's the melody. It's the melody. He had
a melodic foundation. He wasn't just about percussion
and rhythm. He understood melody. But, you know,
as you can imagine, outside the church walls,
the reality of 1980s Long Beach was, well, it
was waiting for him. The grind. The grind in
the environment, yeah. He was hustling from a
young age, selling candy, delivering newspapers,
bagging groceries at the local store. But despite
his mother's best efforts to keep him on that
church path, the... Let's call it the gravity
of the neighborhood. It just took over. And by
his teenage years, he was affiliated. Yeah, he
joined the Rollin' 20s Crips. And the legal trouble
started pretty much immediately after he graduated
high school, right? It was like a revolving door.
He graduated from Long Beach Polytechnic High
School in 1989. And very shortly after that,
he was arrested for possession of cocaine. And
for the next three years, he was just constantly
in and out of incarceration. Places like Wayside
Jail. Exactly. That classic tragic story of immense
potential meeting a dead end or what looks like
a dead end. But obviously he found a way out.
And that way out was the music. This brings us
to the formation of his original crew. 213. 213.
Named after the telephone area code for Long
Beach at the time, it was Snoop, his cousin Nate
Dogg. Who had that incredible, soulful baritone
voice. Unmistakable. Oh, just one of the greatest
voices in hip hop history. Then you have Little
Half Dead and his friend Warren G. And Warren
G is the key. He's the golden ticket in this
whole story. He is the connector. Oh. Absolutely.
Why? Because Warren G is Dr. Dre's stepbrother.
There it is. So you have this group of kids.
They're just recording homemade tapes at a local
spot, VIP Records in Long Beach, hoping, just
hoping for a break. And the breakthrough happens
because of one specific freestyle tape. Yes.
Soup freestyled over M Vogue's Hold On. Which
is an R &B track. That's such a key detail. He
wasn't rapping over some hard boom bap East Coast
beat. He was flowing over smooth, melodic R &B.
100%. And that specific tape, somehow it makes
its way to Dr. Dre. Dre is listening to this
at a bachelor party of all places. Can you imagine?
And he was so blowed away by the flow, the voice,
the way Snoop just wrote that sample that he
invited him to audition. And this was for...
what future shock record future shock which was
the direct precursor to the legendary death row
records but even then he wasn't a finished product
i was reading about the mentorship he got from
the doc and it sounds like he needed some pretty
serious coaching at first oh this is a detail
that real hip -hop heads just love the doc is
a legend in his own right an absolute brilliant
lyricist the genius he basically sat snoop down
and taught him the architecture of a song you
have to understand snoop was a pure freestyler
He could just go off the top of his head for
hours just rambling and weaving these incredible
stories. But it wasn't structured. No structure
at all. And the DOC taught him that. He said,
look, here is a 16 -bar verse. Here is the hook.
Here is the chorus. He literally turned a raw
freestyler into a professional songwriter. And
that transition is what allowed him to really
define his artistry. We have to spend a minute
on what the sources call the drawl. Because in
the early 90s, rap was loud. It was very, very
high energy. I mean, you had Public Enemy, you
had NWA's more aggressive tracks. So much of
it was about volume and intensity. It was about
literally screaming. on the track to get your
political point across. And Snoop just went the
complete opposite direction. The molasses drawl.
That's what the critics called it. And they noticed
it immediately. While everyone else was shouting,
Snoop was speaking softly. It's laid back. It's
so laid back. He used syncopation and this almost
lazy phrasing to create a vibe that forced you
as the listener to lean in. He wasn't begging
for your attention. He was commanding it by being
quiet. And it's interesting because despite the
DOC's training on structure, he kept that freestyle
spirit. I read that people like Lady of Rage
and others who were in the studio said he often
didn't write lyrics down at all. That's absolutely
right. I mean, take a classic track like the
Shiznit from Dolny Style. That was one take.
A complete freestyle. He just got in the zone
in the booth and busted it out. That level of
natural talent to compose a cohesive classic
song in real time, it's just incredibly rare.
So he hooks up with Dre, he finds this completely
unique voice, and then the explosion happens.
It really starts with Deep Cover in 92. Deep
Cover was the warning shot. You know, it's a
theme song for a movie, but it became this massive
street anthem. It was the world's introduction
to Snoop Doggy Dogg. With the chronic. The Chronic
was the full -scale invasion. It was. Snoop was
featured so heavily all over Dr. Dre's The Chronic,
especially on nothing but a G -Thang. Which you
could argue is one of the most important hip
-hop singles of all time. It changed everything.
It set the stage perfectly for what was probably
the most anticipated debut album in hip -hop
history, Doggystyle. The numbers are still just
staggering, even by today's streaming standards.
They're mind -boggling. It debuted at number
one on the Billboard 200. It sold 806 ,000 copies
in the first week. Let's just sit with that.
806 ,000 units. That's not streams. That's people
getting in their cars, driving to Tower Records
or Sam Goody and buying physical CDs and cassette
tapes. It was an event, a cultural event, and
it went on to sell, what, quadruple platinum?
At least. And tracks like What's My Name and
Gin & Juice were just, they were inescapable.
They were. But more importantly, I think, the
album effectively defined the G -Funk genre.
It codified that entire West Coast aesthetic.
The slow -rolling bass lines, the high -pitched
synthesizers, the clever P -funk samples. But,
and this is the massive but that hangs over this
entire period while he is sitting on top of the
entire world with the number one album, he is
literally on trial for his life. This is the
most dramatic, most surreal period of his entire
existence. It's August 1993, so this is even
before the album drops. Right. A confrontation
happens in a park in the Palms neighborhood of
Los Angeles. A man named Philip Oldomarium, who
was a rival gang member, is shot and killed.
Snoop was driving the vehicle. His bodyguard,
a man named McKinley Lee, fired the shot. And
the charge wasn't manslaughter or self -defense.
They went for the maximum. First -degree murder.
Right. Both of them. And you have to remember
the context of the time. The media narrative
was that gangster rap was a plague, a virus.
It was a moral panic. A total moral panic. It
was dangerous, violent. So the prosecution wasn't
just trying a man. In many ways, they felt like
they were trying the entire genre of music. They
wanted to prove that the lyrics he wrote were
a confession of his actual character. To defend
himself, Snoop hired the absolute heavyweight,
Johnny Cochran. The same lawyer from the Dream
Team who would, just a short time later, go on
to defend O .J. Simpson. So it was a complete
media circus. You had Snoop releasing these iconic
music videos, and then the next morning, walking
into court in a suit and tie. And Art was imitating
life in real time. I mean, he released a short
film and a soundtrack in 1994 called Murder Was
the Case. That film is so surreal to watch now.
In the movie, Snoop's character literally makes
a deal with the devil to survive a shooting.
He was actively monetizing his own potential
demise. It was a high wire act. A total high
wire act of marketing and reality just blurring
together into one thing. And then the verdict
finally comes down on February 20, 1996. Acquitted.
Both he and McKinley Lee were cleared of the
murder charges. It's interesting. The case files
were formally sealed just recently, in 2024.
So it's officially over, but the psychological
impact on Snoop at the time must have been profound.
It was. He went on record multiple times saying
he wanted to leave the gangsta lifestyle behind
completely. He felt that if he kept going down
that path, he would either be assassinated or
he'd end up in prison for good. And he wasn't
being paranoid. I mean, the entire environment
around him was literally collapsing. Death Row
Records was imploding. It was a disaster zone.
Tupac Shakur was murdered in September of 96.
The label's CEO, Suge Knight, was indicted on
racketeering charges. The very label that had
built Snoop's entire career was quickly becoming
a graveyard, both literally and figuratively.
So when Snoop releases his second album, Tie
Dog Father, in late 1996, the whole vibe is completely
different. It's a world away from doggy style.
For one, Dr. Dre had already left the label because
of disputes with Suge. So Snoop had to co -produce
it himself with Daz Dillinger and DJ Pooh. And
the sound. The sound was softer. The gangster
edge was noticeably dulled. It still sold well
because, you know, he was Snoop Dogg. Yeah. But
it wasn't the cultural phenomenon that doggy
style was. Not even close. And this is where
he starts to run into the wall, the business
side of things. He starts to realize the nature
of the deal he signed way back when. He realizes
the contract he signed with Death Row was, well,
let's call it draconian. It was incredibly restrictive.
How so? Death Row owned everything. His masters,
his publishing, his image. It was a time -based
contract, which meant they owned his entire creative
output for a set number of years. He was trapped.
So what if he'd do? He couldn't leave. He engaged
in a creative strike. A work stoppage. He just
flat out refused to produce any more tracks for
Suge Knight until the contract expired. He just
waited them out? He did. Well, he did record
one more track for them. Which one? A track that
was explicitly and simply titled Fuck Death Row.
Subtle. Very subtle. Very. But it was a clear
signal. It marked the end of an era. He was finally
free. But now he needed a new home. And the choice
he made? It shocked everybody. He went south.
He signed with Master P and No Limit Records.
A move that confused so many people, especially
the coastal elites in hip -hop. Why go from the
polished, smooth, expensive -sounding G -funk
of the West Coast to the gritty, bounce -influenced,
mass -production sound of New Orleans? Yeah,
why did he do that? Was it just desperation?
Was it the only deal on the table? No, I think
it was a very calculated strategy. Snoop said
he liked that No Limit handmade their material
to fit the artist. But I think the more important
factor was that Master P was running a business,
not a gang. Right. It was stable. It was stable
and it was profitable. Master P was churning
out albums at this incredible pace, and he was
known for paying his artists. Snoop needed cash
flow, and maybe more than that, he needed safety.
So from 1998 to 2000, we get the No Limit era,
a whole different Snoop. Yeah, you get albums
like Day Game Is To Be Sold, Not To Be Told,
and No Limit Top Dog. And commercially, they
were very successful. He kept his name out there.
But critically. Critically, a lot of people felt
the sound just didn't quite fit Snoop's smooth
delivery. It felt a little clunky, a little forced,
but it did what it needed to do. It kept him
relevant, and crucially, it kept him solvent.
He proved he could survive outside the death
row machine. But then, in the early 2000s, we
see another big shift. The emergence of the pimp
persona. This is the Pharrell Williams and the
Neptunes era. A huge pivot. He signs with Geffen
with their Star Trek imprint. The album paid
the cost to be DeBoss signals the shift. But
the real peak is the 2004 album, R &G, Rhythm
and Gangsta, the masterpiece. Which has Drop
It like it's hot on it. His first ever number
one single on the Billboard Hot 100. And you
have to think about that for a second. That's
crazy. Gin and Juice didn't go to number one.
What's my name? It didn't. But Drop It Like It's
Hot did. The sheer minimalism of that Neptune's
beat with Snoop's tongue clicks and smooth flow.
It was absolutely everywhere. And he had successfully
transitioned from gangsta to this sort of smooth,
almost cartoonish, stylized pimp figure. He did.
And speaking of that image, there's a detail
in the sources from that time that I found kind
of jaw -dropping. In a 2006 Rolling Stone interview,
he claimed this wasn't just an image he was playing
with. Right. What do you mean? He claimed that
between 2003 and 2004, he was actually a professional
pimp. For real. Oh. He called it his natural
calling and said, and this is a direct quote,
it was like shooting layups. He claimed to have
a stable of women. and that he toured with them
on a Playboy bus. I mean, was that real? Or was
that just marketing hyperbole to sell the image?
It's impossible to say for sure. But whether
it was real or just feeding the mythology, it
definitely worked. It added this layer of illicit
glamour to his persona without the real -world
grittiness of street violence. But just as he
cements that whole persona, he starts getting
weird in a really good way. He starts bending
genres like crazy. The chameleon phase begins.
This is where he becomes unpredictable. He does
the title track for a Bollywood movie, Sing is
King, in 2008. I remember that. Then he collaborates
with Katy Perry on California Girls in 2010.
And that Katy Perry track is a monster hit. Yeah.
That's the moment where, like... grandmas and
toddlers and everyone in between knows who Snoop
Dogg is. He's basically a full blown pop star
at that point. He became safe enough for Top
30 Radio, which is incredible considering where
he started. But then he takes this incredibly
sharp left turn in 2012. He goes to Jamaica.
The Snoop Lion era. I remember this so clearly.
It felt like a global fever dream. It really
did. He goes to Jamaica. He has this spiritual
awakening and he claims to be the reincarnation
of Bob Marley. He changes his name to Snoop Lion.
Releases a full reggae album, reincarnated, and
a documentary to go with it. It was a total immersion
into a new identity. How was it accepted? Was
it seen as a genuine spiritual journey or just
a gimmick? The results were very mixed. The album
did okay on the charts, but the cultural reception
was complicated. Bunny Whaler, an absolute legend
from Bob Marley's band The Whalers, he criticized
it very heavily. What did he say? He called it
fraudulent. He accused Snoop of cultural appropriation,
of just using Rastafari culture as a costume
to sell records. Ouch. That's harsh. It was very
harsh. Snoop kind of dismissed the criticism,
saying his spiritual journey was personal and
nobody could judge it. But you'll notice he didn't
stay a lion for very long. Right. He pivoted
again. Immediately. He did a pure funk album
with Damn Funk in 2013 called Seven Days of Funk.
And then maybe the most surprising turn of all.
In 2018, he releases a full double -disc gospel
album. Eyeball of Love. And for that one, he
called himself a born -again Christian. It feels
like he's just walking into a costume shop and
trying on every single hat on the shelf to see
what fits. Or maybe he realizes that Snoop is
the brand and the genre is just the packaging.
The music almost becomes secondary to the personality
who's delivering it. That's a great way to put
it. He can sell you gospel, reggae, or funk,
and you buy it not necessarily for the genre,
but because he is the one selling it to you.
And then we get the ultimate full circle moment,
the one that ties the whole story together. February
2022. He acquires the Death Row Records brand
from M &RK Music Group. Think about that. The
label that launched him, the label he went to
war with, the label he had to literally escape
from. He bought it. He owns it now. That is the
ultimate power move in music history. I can't
think of a bigger one. It's incredible. And to
celebrate, he released his 20th studio album,
Missionary, in 2024. And it's produced entirely
by Dr. Dre. They called it a spiritual sequel
to Doggystyle. From employee to owner. But the
music, at this point, it's really only half the
story. Maybe even less than half. We have to
talk about Snoop the Mogul. Because his business
portfolio is just... It's bafflingly diverse.
It is the absolute definition of diversification.
I mean, let's just look at media first. He realized
really early on that he had genuine comedic timing.
Doggy fizzle televizzle on MTV. I loved that
show. It was a sketch show. And he was genuinely
funny. He wasn't taking himself too seriously
at all. And that led to all these roles in movies
like Starsky and Hutch, The Wash, and even a
serious role in Training Day, where he played
a villain really, really well. And we, uh...
We can't skip over Soul Plane. We probably could
skip over Soul Plane from a critical standpoint.
But culturally, you're right. It cemented him
as this comedic fixture. But the absolute crown
jewel of his media reinvention has to be the
partnership with Martha Stewart. Martha and Snoop's
pot -loved dinner party. I mean, who in their
right mind pitched that? Hey, let's take the
domestic goddess of Connecticut and the dog father
from Long Beach and have them cook together.
Sounds like a joke. It sounds like a Mad Libs,
but it was genius. Pure genius. It played on
the obvious contrast, but it also revealed this
genuine, surprising chemistry they had. It did.
And it softened his image completely. I mean,
you can't be terrified of a guy who is happily
icing cupcakes with Martha Stewart. It made him
a household name for a demographic of people
that never, ever would have bought Doggy Style.
It stripped away the last remnants of fear that
were associated with his brand. And he didn't
just stop at traditional TV. He got into tech.
This is the part that surprises a lot of people.
In 2014, he participated in Reddit's $50 million
funding round. Wait, wait, wait. Snoop Dogg is
an early investor in Reddit. He is. He also invested
in Eaze, the cannabis delivery startup, which
makes sense. And he founded his own digital media
site focused on cannabis culture, Mary Jane.
He even, for a while, sat on the board of directors
for FaZe Clan, the big gaming organization. That
gaming connection is really strong, too. He's
an operator skin in Call of Duty. Right. You
can literally play as Snoop Dogg. He launched
his own gangsta gaming league. He's smart. He
just goes where the eyeballs are. He's not precious
about high art versus low art. If it's popular,
Snoop wants to be there. And then, of course,
there are the consumer products. Oh, the products.
Leafs by Snoop. He was the first major celebrity
to really brand a line of legal marijuana products.
That's a no -brainer. But then you have stuff
like Snoop Kali Red Wine with the 19 Crimes brand.
I see that everywhere I go. The bottle has his
face on it, and the cork has his face on it.
And now there are gin and juice, pre -mixed cocktails,
and cookbooks. He has two, from Cook to Cook
and Goon with a Spoon. The titles are amazing.
And didn't he set some kind of world record related
to gin and juice? He did. It was in 2018 at the
Bottle Rock Music Festival. He set the Guinness
World Record for the largest paradise cocktail.
It was basically a massive functioning vat of
gin and juice. How big are we talking? 550 liters.
That is a lot of gin. It's a swimming pool of
gin. But again, look at what he's doing. It's
the monetization of his own history. He took
a lyric from 1993 and turned it into a world
record and a successful product line a quarter
of a century later. We also have to touch on
his involvement in sports because this seems
like it's a real passion project for him. It's
not just business. It absolutely is. The Snoop
Youth Football League, which he founded way back
in 2005. This isn't just a celebrity slapping
their name on a jersey and writing a check. No,
he coaches. He coaches. He's on the sidelines.
He's involved. It's for at -risk youth. And it
has actually produced a number of NFL players.
Guys like C .J. Stroud and Jack Jones came through
his league. There's a documentary about it, right?
Coach Snoop. Yeah, and it's great. It shows how
deeply he cares about these kids. He's screaming
at the refs. He's hugging his players. He is
fully 100 % invested. And then you fast forward
to him at the Paris 2024 Olympics. He was just
everywhere. He carried the Olympic torch. He
was doing commentary. He was basically the American
ambassador of good vibes for the entire game.
And he was inducted into the celebrity wing of
the WWE. Hall of Fame in 2016. He even had to
step in and save a match at WrestleMania 39.
I remember seeing this. Shane McMahon tore his
quad muscle mid -match. Totally unscripted injury.
The whole segment was about to die. And Snoop
just, he improvises. He gets in the ring, throws
a punch, does a people's elbow, and pins the
other guy to finish the match. That just sums
him up perfectly, doesn't it? He just improvises
and somehow always wins. Precisely, yeah. Okay,
now, we need to peel back the curtain a little
bit on his personal life. Because for all the
fame and all the chaos, he's managed to keep
a somewhat stable, albeit complex, family life
going. He married his high school sweetheart,
Shante Taylor, way back in 1997. And in the world
of entertainment, marrying your high school sweetheart
is incredibly rare. Staying married is even rarer.
Well, it wasn't a completely straight line. He
actually filed for divorce in 2004, citing irreconcilable
differences. But they never went through with
it. They reconciled and they renewed their wedding
vows in 2008 on a ranch. They have three children
together and he has another son from a different
relationship. Right. And they've also faced real
tragedy together publicly. In 2019, his grandson,
this is his eldest son, Cordae's child, died
just 10 days after he was born. And it was a
moment where we saw a very vulnerable. very human,
grieving side of the family, kind of grounded
the larger -than -life character of Snoop Dogg
back into the reality of just being a grandfather.
He also has some surprising family connections
within the entertainment industry. We already
mentioned Jeet Dogg being his cousin and Warren
G being his stepbrother, but he's also first
cousins with the WWE superstar Mercedes Monáe,
who used to be Sasha Banks. I did not know that.
And he claims to be related to the singers Brandi
and Ray J, though Brandi has been a little bit
vague about confirming that one over the years.
the years. Let's talk about the elephant in the
room. Or maybe it's the cloud in the room. Cannabis.
It is his trademark. It's as much a part of his
brand as the braids. He once claimed in a Reddit
AMA session that he smoked 81 blunts a day. 81.
How is that even physically possible? How do
you function? That's basically a blunt every
12 minutes if you never, ever sleep. A very high
tolerance, I assume. But he's also a master of
using that reputation for marketing. Which brings
us to 2023. The announcement. He releases this
very solemn black and white photo of himself
and a statement on social media that just says,
after much consideration and conversation with
my family, I've decided to give up smoke. And
the entire internet melted down. People were
losing their minds. They were like, if Snoop
quits weed, the simulation is officially broken.
And then a day or two later, it was revealed
to be a commercial for a smokeless fire pit.
The solo stove. It was a brilliant piece of trolling.
Absolutely genius. He really was. But his cannabis
use has had very real consequences over the years,
especially internationally. Right. He was banned
from a few countries. He was banned from entering
the UK for years after a big brawl at Heathrow
Airport in 2006. He was banned from entering
Australia in 2007. He got a two -year ban from
Norway in 2012 after customs agents found him
with eight grams of marijuana. It's kind of funny
now in retrospect, but being banned from entire
countries is a serious problem for a touring
artist. It's a huge impediment. But even most
of those bans have since been lifted. He's been
welcomed back to the UK, and according to Snoop's
version of the story, it was because Prince Harry
and Prince William were fans, and the Queen herself
granted him permission. I want to believe that's
exactly how it happened. Grandmother, please
let the dog father into the country. His retelling
of it is certainly very colorful. One area where
he is surprisingly difficult to pin down is politics.
You'd expect him, based on his image, to be firmly
on one side, but his record is it's very fluid.
Fluid is the perfect word for it. In 2012, for
example, he endorsed Ron Paul for president.
The libertarian Republican. That's not what I
would have expected. No one expected it. Then
he voted for Obama. In 2016, he was a vocal supporter
of Hillary Clinton. But then, look at his relationship
with Donald Trump. Yeah, that has been a complete
roller coaster. A wild ride. In 2017, Snoop released
a music video for the song Lavender, where he
pointed a toy gun at a clown dressed up as Donald
Trump. It was a mock execution. And Trump was
furious. Trump was furious. He tweeted about
failing Snoop Dogg and his failing career. It
was a genuine public feud. But then something
changed. Fast forward to early 2024. Snoop goes
on record saying he has nothing but love and
respect for Donald Trump. And just this year.
In 2025, he performed at a Trump -sponsored crypto
event. So what explains the complete 180? Why
the flip? The common speculation is that it was
because Trump, before leaving office, granted
a pardon to the co -founder of Death Row Records,
Michael Herriot Harris. And Snoop had lobbied
very, very hard for that pardon. It seems to
show that Snoop's politics are often personal
and transactional. rather than being purely ideological.
It's about loyalty to his circle, to his people.
He does have a strong activist streak, though,
on certain issues. He does, and he has for a
while. He advocated for same -sex marriage way
back in 2013, which was not a given in the hip
-hop culture of the time. In 2016, he co -led
a peaceful march to the LAPD headquarters with
The Game, following the police shootings in Dallas.
And what about gun control? Despite his own past
gun charges, he has been a surprisingly consistent
voice for tighter gun control. He even released
a song about it with his daughter called No Guns
Allowed. It's that complexity again, isn't it?
The guy with the famous gun charge from the 90s
singing No Guns Allowed. The guy who mocked a
president performing at his gala years later.
He contains multitudes, as they say. So let's
try to bring all of this together. We've gone
from the streets of Long Beach to the boardroom,
from a first degree murder trial to the Olympics.
It's a trajectory that is almost unique in American
public life. I can't think of a direct comparison.
He started as a gangster rap lightning rod. He
was a symbol of everything that mainstream America
feared in the early 90s. And he somehow ended
up as this beloved, cuddly national mascot. How
does he stay so relevant? I mean, most rappers
from 1993 are either retired or they're playing
state fairs. Snoop is arguably more famous and
more visible now than he was even then. It's
one word. Adaptation. He never, ever fought the
cultural current. When G -Funk started to fade,
he went to no limit. When pop music took over
the charts, he did a song with Katy Perry. When
social media exploded, he became a meme king.
He gets it. He realizes that Snoop Dogg is a
feeling, it's a vibe, more than it is just a
musician. He's charismatic, he's funny, and he
somehow feels authentic, even when he is, by
any definition, selling out. He became the cool
uncle everyone wants to hang out with. Exactly.
He made himself completely approachable without
ever losing his core sense of cool. It's a magic
trick. So, OK, here's the final thought I want
to leave everyone with. Snoop has successfully
and brilliantly monetized every single aspect
of his life. His criminal past became a movie
and a soundtrack. His love of weed became a venture
capital portfolio. His role as a father became
a reality TV show. His ability to cook became
a book and a TV show with Martha Stewart. Every
part of his persona is a product. So, does his
evolution represent the ultimate triumph of personal
branding, where the personality actually supersedes
the art itself? Is Snoop Dogg the person now
a bigger, more valuable product than Snoop Dogg
the rapper? It's a fascinating question, and
I think it's the core of his whole story. When
you buy a ticket to see him live now, or you
buy a bottle of his wine, are you doing it for
the artistry of the music, or are you doing it
just to be in the orbit of the dog father? For
most people now, we know the answer. The man
became the myth and then the myth became the
business. And on that note, we're going to wrap
up this deep dive. Thanks for listening and keep
it smooth. Stay curious, everybody.