Transcript
Jake Brennan (0:04)
Double Elvis Wow.
Jeff Probst (0:08)
What's up?
Jake Brennan (0:09)
I just bought and financed a car through Carvana in minutes.
Jeff Probst (0:12)
You, the person who agonized four weeks over whether to paint your wall's eggshell or off white, bought and financed a car in minutes.
Jake Brennan (0:18)
They made it easy. Transparent terms, customizable down and monthly. Didn't even have to do any paperwork.
Jeff Probst (0:24)
Wow.
Snoop Dogg (0:25)
Mm.
Jeff Probst (0:26)
Hey, have you checked out that spreadsheet.
Jake Brennan (0:28)
I sent you for our dinner Options?
Jeff Probst (0:30)
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Jake Brennan (1:09)
Double Elvis the stories about Snoop Doggy Dog are insane. He was a member of the infamous Rollin 20 Crips street gang. He went to jail for cocaine possession. He became a pimp after becoming a worldwide hip hop star. To this day, he smokes copious amounts of the chronic, even claiming to have gotten high in the bathroom of the White house back in 2015. He coaches youth football, is BFFs with Martha Stewart, and depending on who you talk to, is one of the most talented rappers of all time. He is iconic, known the world over by the one syllable nickname his mama gave him, Snoop. Though he now occupies coveted real estate on Hollywood Boulevard in the form of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Snoop came up on different streets. The gang torn streets of Long Beach, California, streets that despite his stardom, he'd never really be able to leave behind streets that would nearly derail his career. But despite all that noise, or perhaps because of it, Snoop made great music. That music you heard at the top of the show, that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my melotron called slow street basa clav bk1. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to Exhale Shoop Shoop by Whitney Houston. And why would I play you that specific slice of uninspired Betty Everett biting cheese? Could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on November 27, 1995. And that was the day that Snoop Doggy Dog aka the D O Double G entered a Los Angeles superior courtroom to defend himself against a first degree murder charge that would potentially send him to prison for the rest of his life. On this episode, Slow Bossa, Stolen Cheese, the Streets, A murder case in Snoop Dogg. I'm Jake Brennan and this is disgrace. As far back as Snoop could remember, he always wanted to be a pimp. Snoop grew up as Calvin Broadus Jr. In Long Beach, California, Eastside. But up by Wrigley, near the PCH, the prostitutes roamed free. It was pimpled. The neighborhood was a remnant of what had become of Long Beach's notorious oceanfront slum known as the jungle. By the 1980s and 1990s, the sailors and dock workers from earlier in the century had been replaced by the gangbangers and traveling businessmen, and the pimps ruled it all in style. As a kid, Snoop vibed on Iceberg Slim, whose autobiography the Story of My Life brought Pimpin out of the shadows and onto bookshelves alongside books by black power icons like Malcolm X and Eldridge Cleaver. Young Snoop wasn't the only one enthralled by pimp culture. Seventies filmmakers couldn't put the pimps down either. Harvey Keitel's Sport from Taxi Driver and Rudy Ray Moore's Dolemite gave young kids in the seventies a glamorized view into the seedy underbelly of the street. Dolemite's comedic blend on blaxploitation was particularly compelling. Dolemite is my name and fucking up motherfuckers is my game. I'm Dolemite, I'm the one that killed Monday, whooped Tuesday, put Wednesday in the hospital, called up Thursday to tell Friday not to bury Saturday on a Sunday. I'm the one. I'm the one who had the elephant roosted in trees and all the ants wearing BVD's. These characters in these films were part of the hood curriculum for Snoop. Years later, after becoming a hip hop sensation, Snoop would try his hand at Pimpin for real. He had at least two women going at all times, sometimes as many as 10, all in various hotel rooms that he'd have booked adjacent whatever hotel suite he was staying in while on the road back in 2003. His clients were entertainers and athletes, discerning clientele who could afford the services of Snoop's so called hoes and also keep a secret. Snoop couldn't believe the money he was generating. Not that he needed it. By this time, Snoop was one of the biggest stars in entertainment, and his experience. Pimping along with his love for Dolomite, would eventually inform his later performance in 2004's Starsky and Hutch. As Huggy Bear, the pimped out underworld contact for Ben Stiller's Starsky and Owen Wilson's Hutch, Snoop took the streets he came up on into the mainstream and used them to turn himself into one of the most recognizable stars in the world. His star shot out of the gangsta rap scene, a scene that truly began its ascent in 1992 after its biggest group, Compton's NWA had splintered. That year, within a month of each other, two of NWA's biggest stars released what would become two of gangsta rap's most enduring musical statements, Ice Cube's The Predator and Dr. Dre's The Chronic. Both albums problems are, in a word, great. Ice Cube's the Predator is hard, mean, unflinching and unforgiving. It picks up where NWA's fuck the police left off and doesn't look back. In a way, it's what we expected from Cube at the time, a no holds barred assessment of life on the LA streets. Streets where you could still smell the burning embers of the la riots from six months earlier. Dr. Dre's necrotic, on the other hand, wasn't necessarily what they Want World was expecting. It's raw and in its own way, an unflinching look at life on Compton streets. But straight up, the Chronic is a party record. Dre threw George Clinton's sink at the project and the result was nothing short of jaw dropping. The first 15 seconds on the album are gripping. Dre's brief, plain spoken dedication is the first thing you hear. Then welcome to Death Row. After that, a harsh clanging of a prison cell door being slammed shut. Then in an instant, the vibe lightens to the sound of a last poet's vocal sample. A raspy, slack jawed voice chimes in like we always do about this time. A second later, a boisterous ha ha ha. The beat drops. It's big and so is the synth. Dre's patented Compton whistle. And then that voice. Yeah. Nine Deuce Death Row Records Creeping while you're sleeping and you're off, off on some trip you've never been off onto before. That new voice is taking you for a ride and you're in the back seat, head back, top down. The smell of herb everywhere. And the voice is transcendent. New, fresh, largely unknown. It's Dre's record, but this young pup named Snoop is owning it. From the outset, announcing his arrival with Athari and Dre, with type of confidence most artists can only dream of, has the sand to let this newbie hijack his mothership and let him ride straight to number three on the Billboard charts. The record is a banger, a crossover success for hip hop that up to that point was unimaginable. Dubbed gangsta Lite, the record was unavoidable. Through late 92 and 93. Black kids, white kids, high school kids, college kids and adults with ears everywhere got hooked on the Chronicle and by extension hooked on Snoop Dogg as well. Of the 16 tracks on the Chronic, Snoop is on 11 and he shined. To call it his breakout is an understatement. His laid back flow evoked rap's earlier storytellers like Slick Rick or Too Short. But it's otherwise totally unique, unlike any voice performed in the lyrics. All gangster. The Chronic would go on to be certified triple platinum, 3 million records and the world wanted more. More Dre, but also more Snoop. So when Snoop's debut album Doggy Style was released the following year, it debuted at number one on the Billboard charts, a first ever for a debut artist album Doggy Style along with its follow up the Dogfather, both sold in the multi millions. Snoop, whose style and delivery were instantly iconic, to say nothing of being recognizable, was a mainstay on MTV and on magazine covers. He was by any measure a success. Throughout the 90s and early 2000s, Snoop's notoriety and fame rose and money wasn't an issue. So when he decided to start pimping in 2003 again, it it wasn't about the money. It was, as Snoop said quote, about the fascination of being a pimp. I could fire a bitch, fuck a bitch, city to city, titty to titty, hotel room to hotel room, athlete to athlete, entertainer to entertainer. Snoop had channeled his down and dirty dolomite, his inner iceberg slim, and had become for a brief period only, his childhood fantasy. He'd come up from the street and was proudly, openly taking the street with him to ride shotgun alongside his fame and success, two things in Snoop's life that only a few years earlier were far from certain.