Classic Snoop Dogg interview: Disses Ja Rule, Talks about East Coast biting the West, 2Pac punking Nas and more

This was one of the best interviews Ive seen. This is the Snoop that I want back!

ith a successful career spanning well over ten years in the game, Snoop Doggy Dogg has more than paid the cost to be the boss. The Boss ain’t just selling woof tickets, he’s sounding off about the state of Hip-Hop and who and what needs to be eliminated for the perpetuation of the movement. He holds no bones about it as he speaks in an overly candid manner about Suge Knight, Pac, Nas, Ja Rule, Dr. Dre and even resurfaces some coastal criticism. AllHipHop.com caught up with the D-O double G as he was stepping out of the booth at LA’s Record Plant recording studio. With a preacher’s fervor and a gangster’s lament, get a glimpse of Snoop’s in-depth commentary towards the issues that everybody wonders about.

AllHipHop.com: When you’re in the booth you look like your having a ball, do you imagine you’re on stage performing?

Snoop: (Nods head) When I listen to it back in my headphones that s**t be sounding good as a mah-fucka. It make a nigga feel like he listenin’ to Sam Cooke or something.

AllHipHop.com: Your style is sounding soulful even for Hip-Hop. How would you say it’s changed since the beginning of your career?

Snoop: I think I’m more melodic, more instrumental, more musical. Going back to my background from the church.

AllHipHop.com: You’re in that booth like your trying to bring the West back or something, What’s that all about?

Snoop: I got to.

AllHipHop.com: All I’m saying is what took you so long?

Snoop: That’s because I don’t’ get no help. Dr. Dre is the Godfather. But remember, I was an under boss. I came up under Dr. Dre, ’til I crept up to the top and moved away and did my thang. See what I’m sayin? He ain’t about helping the West and that ain’t no disrespect. Eminem ain’t from the West, 50 Cent ain’t from the West. Do I need to say more?

AllHipHop.com: Who all have you helped in the West?

Snoop: Tha Eastsidaz, Doggy’s Angels, Everybody that come out the West come fuck with me, Suga Free all of em. They get on my shit and I help to get them exposure. If I don’t do it ain’t nobody else gonna do it. Look at all my records even when I was on No Limit. I always brought n***as with me, like come on ‘cuz, come get on this. Even the girls, I put the first West coast girl group in the game, three females. And that wasn’t easy to do because they didn’t even get along, so imagine that.

AllHipHop.com: I know we get it on the West but what is it about Snoop that makes him so universal?

Snoop: I think people understand me, me as a person and what I went through because I kept it on the plate. I never hid nothing. I was never in the closet. I smoked dope, I gang banged, I did this, I did that; whatever I did it was always out. It was never like, “I didn’t know Snoop smoked weed. I didn’t know he did all kinds of stuff.” When you real with the people they give you that back. And I always opened myself up to them and shared that with ’em. I always gave it up uncut even when I first got with Dre I was like, “Cuzz when I’m writing for you I’mma write the realest shit I can think of. Sometimes I might be involved in it sometimes I might not.” But when he gave me the right to do it, I just been on ever since like, “F**k it.” I gotta be open and real with people because when you lie and fake then when they find out, they hate you.

AllHipHop.com: Speaking of gangbanging, you know it’s the 10-year anniversary of the Crips and Bloods gang truce signing in Los Angeles?

Snoop: Yes, I was a part of it.

AllHipHop.com: How do you feel about it now?

Snoop: I think it set a mark. It put in everybody’s head that it’s time to make a change. I don’t think it’s as strong as it was 10 years ago, but it’s effective. You have more respect now. By that day happening it taught us respect. It taught us how to see a Blood and say, “What’s up homie?” and not justfoul around him, that’s just how the game is bred and I feel like that too. Like Dr. Dre, I don’ t let niggas talk bad about Dr. Dre. I can talk bad about him but y’all can’t.

Lil’ Half Dead: And the cold part about it is, I wouldn’t let nobody talk bad about [Dre] just cause he [Snoop] love him.

Snoop: Betta not!

AllHipHop.com: Not to open a sore wound, but what was it that made you and Pac fall out?

Snoop: We was in New York before Pac got killed at the MTV Awards and Angie Martinez had got at me in the park because Pac had just confronted Nas. Nas had about 50 n***as with him and Pac had about 30 niggas with him and Pac checked him, punked him in Central Park, I mean straight punked him. He went up to the n***a and told him, “Nigga, look nigga.” Nas said, “Hey Pac, I ain’t got no problem with you man, I love your music.” So Pac said, “Well look nigga, if you ain’t got a problem with me, I got a record comin out where I diss you, Biggie, Jay-Z and whop whop whoop, and nigga if it ain’t no love lost, nigga don’t make no reply record, nigga and I wont come back at you no more.” And it went down just like that, I was right there. I wasn’t in the circle I was outside the circle looking right [in], so Pac is standing where you at, and he looking at me while he talking to [Nas], and I’m right behind Nas about four steps away.

Snoop: I got about fifteen niggas with me but we not trippin’ we just watching, but Pac punkin a nigga broke him all the way down. So after that Angie Martinez get at me and she say, “Snoop I don’t see you in the middle of all that and I say I’m not a part of that so she says would you come to the station and speak on it?”

I don’t have a problem with that, so I go to the station and about thirty minutes into the interview [she] says, “So how do you feel about Biggie and Puff?” “Oh them my niggas, I love them nigga’s they make good music.” And that did it. That one comment did it. They felt like I betrayed n***a’s and me and Pac ain’t said another word after that. He sent his little homeboy to my room when I got back to the hotel talking bout, “Pac said give him five blunts homie.” I said, “Niigga send Pac up here so I give the nigga one blunt.” So [Pac] call me on the phone and say, “Hey Dogg, send me some more weed down here I got some b**ches down here.” So I’m like, “Aight homie so I give him some more weed. So we riding back on the plane and them niggas don’t say one word to me. They don’t even let my security ride with me on a private plane. They tell my security you can’t ride, so it’s just me and all them nigga’s and nobody says one word to me. We land and I got my Rolls Royce pickin me up and he got his pickin him up and I say, “Yo Pac you goin to Vegas?” and he just give me this real stank ass look and don’t say nothing, that’s it.

Snoop: So I’m at Warren G’s house and my pager starts blowing up talking bout turn on the news. We turn on the news see yellow tape and Suge’s [BMW], we hear the words so I call Suge like, “What up y’all alright?” He like, “Yeah I got shot in the head, Pac moving he alright.” So I hop in the car me my Uncle, Marcus, and Kenny we rolled down to Suge’s house in my Hummer. When we get there everybody all sad looking, so they let us slip in the back room. But the way [Suge] actin he ain’t actin like a nigga that just got shot. He got a cigar in his mouth he like, “Yeah Doggy Dogg that nigga Pac crazy man when that mutha fucka start shooting he said jump in the back seat and and try to hop over the seat and I’m pulling him down so he wouldn’t get shot.” So I’m listening to [Suge] talk right and his whole attitude just ain’t like a nigga that’s supposed to be hurt right now, he’s more happy and s**t and I’m just like cool aight. So me and my uncle we looking at each other like, “Damn that s**t don’t seem right.” So the next day we go to the hospital and Pac ain’t movin or nothing. His mama [Afeni Shakur] in there, Jesse Jackson in there. His mama grabbed me because I just break down. I’m just crying, I think I threw up, I fainted, all kinda s**t! That s**t was crazy for me because that was my nigga, and for it to end all over some crazy shit that was crazy.

Snoop: So I fell out, [Afeni] grab me took me to the bathroom, cleaned a nigga up. [She] stood me outside and she was just being so real with a nigga. She said, “Pac loves you and she was just running down some real shit,” and I’m just like damn I can’t believe she’s being so strong right now. The next time I seen her, my mama went to Atlanta to do something for her for Mother’s Day [Benefit] and she told me some real shit. I ain’t gonna share it, but it was real some real heavy s**t, so I always look out for his mama cause I know how much he loved his mama. All these other n***as that be stealin from him and using him on songs and all that, them n***as is fake especially all these n***as he dissed and checked. That’s fake sh*t to me. If a n***a diss me and a n***a dead, I can’t take his vocals and do a record with him like we was cool. That’s hoe sh*t to me ’cause if the n***a was here, he’d be driving your ass in the turf right now. Ja rule wouldn’t even exist right now and that’s real shit.

Snoop: DMX would’ve made it because he was like a substitute for a Pac once Pac was dead he was the closest thing to him. Niggas could relate to DMX he was that hard nigga that was like, “F**k it.” So niggas could relate, but Ja Rule definitely wouldn’t be in the game. Oh but he ain’t in the game now anyway. 50 Cent shut him down. (Laughter) I told you about trying to hit the boss n***a, you said something about me and I didn’t say nothing back to you, I told Irv Gotti I was gonna give y’all a pass, I ain’t gonna fuckk with y’all. I know [Irv] was mad [that] Daz checked y’all niggas and y’all wanna shoot a shot at me instead of getting at Daz, but it’s cool though you can’t knock a boss off. I’m on top, I’m here to stay this is where I’m supposed to be I earned this position ain’t nobody give this to me.

AllHipHop.com: How many different sides are there to Snoop?

Snoop: There’s a couple of sides. I’ve been through a whole lot. A whole lot. And it needs to be expressed because at the same time I’m still that cool n***a that sit in the corner. But sometimes I gotta come out of the shell because if I don’t say nothing, who else gonna say something? I’m the movement right now, I’m the voice for a lot of muh fuckas who can’t speak. But when I speak sometimes it ain’t my voice it’s they voice. It’s just they cant be heard and they can’t say what I can say so I just say it for them.

AllHipHop.com: New York factions are supposed to be incorporating the truce as well.

Snoop: Them niggas out there are fake. We’re at a club in New York last week and they put on that Lil Flip song that goes, “Flip, Flip, Flip” and by the end of the song I had the whole club yellin, “Crip, Crip,Crip!” Even the red rags. I bullshit you not.

AllHipHop.com: Why doesn’t West coast Hip-Hop get the acclaim that it should?

Snoop: It’s easy to steal from a West coast nigga. Look at the East right now, they stealin all our music, all our words, and our lingo. They gangsta’s now, they wearing Chuck’s now, they wearin braids now, they saggin’ now. Everything we was doin ten years ago, they doing now. But when it comes to us getting play they hide us and take our shit. We are easily infiltrated because we’re not unified. If we was unified it wouldn’t happen. If we had a nigga’s coalition out here on the West coast any n***a that violated or took our s**t we’d fuck them n*gas up or get at ‘m quickly. But since it’s so unorganized, niggas don’t mind, they just like they ain’t takin’ my shit so whatever.

I’m the only n***a that really go out to New York like that. And the last time I was there I had to check the radio station and I told them, “Hot 97 ain’t sh*t ’cause they don’t play no motherf**kin West coast music, so f**k them!” The only way I got played was when I was with Dr. Dre but as a solo artist y’all don’t play my shit? You don’t play the Eastsidaz, you don’t play my people’s shit? But every mahf**ka from the East gets play on Power 106 and the Beat, even that wack ass Ja-Rule and Bobby Brown [joint]!

All that bullshit y’all put out we accepted it, we played if for y’all we gave y’all niggas a shot. If you don’t give us an opportunity to be played or heard then you just taking our shit and stealing, it but niggas from the West don’t know that because it’s a dream for a niggaa to go to the East coast. The average nigga from [Los Angeles] can’t just go to [New York] and hold his own as a rapper, but now you see these young n***a’s like Game and the young homies that’s rappin’ coming out rippin’ them niggas up and what happens? The East snatches ’em up and says come on over here because the West coast nigga’s ain’t strong enough to put [him] in the game. Dre had him but Dre didn’t do nothin’ with him.

AllHipHop.com: How do we change that?

Snoop: We start a coalition. And we get rid of Suge Knight No. 1 (snaps his fingers) for good, because that’s a bump in the road and when you got a negative bump in the road it makes it hard. When he gets [released from prison] nigga’s get scared to go places and n***as get timid, instead of us being on a peaceful musical movement. If Death Row was dope, nigga you wouldn’t have to be on that negative shit. Make good music and that keeps you alive not hating on n***as destroying a motherfuckas reputation and tryin’ to bring a n***a down. Try to bring a niga up because the nigga you bringing down is like, “Damn why this nigga trying to bring me down and he tied into people you don’t even know?” And while you hatin’ on him you don’t realize that everybody that loves him, hates you. But the way I looked at it a long time ago, my fans are my fans. Say “Fuck Snoop” around one of my fans, see what they do.

AllHipHop.com: Yeah, Snoop fans are like Laker fans, they carry knives.

Snoop: It don’t matter Laker fans, Raider fans, whoever your n***a is, you ride with ’em to the fullest. If a n***a disrespect your peoples, you feel disrespected. This is my homie Half Dead right here, a nigga can’t say nothing foul about Snoop Dog in front of him. In jail, on the street, no matter where he at. I don’t give a fuck if we ain’t cool, a n***a can’t say nothing Ü¥e