The Dogg, The Myth, The Legend: Snoop Dogg on Individuality and Greatness
He’s a Dogg amongst pups, an animal of his own breed: He’s wild, viciously funny, and bears no filter, yet has a heart that suggests otherwise. He’s “Snoop D.O. Double G,” and he wants it no other way.
From watching him entertain on TV shows as a little kid to listening to his music, there was always something special about brother Snoop. I came to realize at a young age that it is his unique personality and refusal to conform to societal norms that make us bystanders so attached to him. His distinctive persona has allowed him to cultivate works of music and entertainment, unlike any seen before. Amazingly enough, two decades after his epic rise to stardom in the mid ’90s, he continues to charm us with his laid-back, hilarious presence and his genius way with words.
Looked up to by millions across the globe, Snoop Dogg has always made one thing very clear about success: finding and exploiting a distinctive attribute of oneself is the only way to get there. He’ll tell you from experience, as it wasn’t until he discovered his own unique gifts that he could attain prosperity.
“… get good enough to where other niggers are imitating you, and that means you’ve got to find something original in yourself to offer.” — Snoop Dogg
Originality often breeds a mysterious appeal that many people find themselves helplessly attracted to. Snoop is the cream of the crop in that he sustains a potent aura of mystery and charm throughout everything that he does. People don’t realize, however, just how far his rare magnetism has carried him. Snoop Dogg’s distinctively nonchalant and smooth personality helped him overcome some of life’s greatest misfortunes and morphed him into one of the most intriguing, lovable, and elusive renaissance men of this century.
From the perspective of a normal American, it may seem that Snoop Dogg has always been blessed with an amazing life, full of copious amounts of wealth, fame, and weed. His seemingly carefree presence may suggest this; such an assumption, however, is nowhere close to the truth.
In 1999, Snoop Dogg (Calvin Broadus, Jr.) released his autobiography, Tha Doggfather: the times, trials, and hardcore truths of Snoop Dogg, in which he presents the rough journey he fought through to become the famous rap star and entertainer that America had come to know at the time. With the help of William Morrow and Company, Inc., Snoop was able to publish his book and present his life story in a way that he could never communicate seriously through spoken words.
Throughout the book, Snoop constantly reminds us that his life-purpose and reason behind sharing his story is to “…increase the peace. To spread the music. To elevate and educate.” Snoop hopes that hearing about the experiences from the man himself will better prepare us to address the brutal problems of this world. He informs us by combining his remarkable short stories with so called “truths,” in which he elaborates on any topic from rap to God.
Snoop’s story begins in the early ’70s in the hood of Long Beach, California, where he grew up fatherless with his mom and two brothers. At a young age, his mother noticed that his cool, mellow demeanor resembled that of Snoopy from the Peanuts, so she deemed him the nickname Snoop. He would soon figure out that it was those tranquil qualities that made him a source of such fascination and admiration.
Unfortunately, growing up without a father figure, young Snoop had a hard time telling right from wrong and often used his slick persona to raise hell, rather than do good. Around his teen years, Snoop began to skip school and tended to play with girls, steal from stores, and smoke that “sticky icky” (marijuana) with his homies instead.
“…it was like my duty as a homeboy to try and get next to as many of the little foxes as I could.” — Snoop (Tha Doggfather pg 28)
As Snoop reached his teenage years, violence and drugs seized the Long Beach hood; Snoop succumbed to the pressure and decided it was time to be a man, move out of the house, and strive to be gangster.
Young Snoop’s love for rap music developed around the mid-80s. It made him proud to be a black kid from the ghetto and represented the lifestyle he was pursuing. At age thirteen, Snoop began to rap with his best friend Warren G., who just so happened to be the half-brother of the hottest rapper in the world at the time, Dr. Dre. Brother Snoop had mad skills, but being a kid at the time, he didn’t possess the knowledge needed to produce and had not developed enough confidence to advertise himself.
Snoop realized that rapping wasn’t providing the immediate support and money he needed to make it on the streets so he took the easy route, joined the Rollin’ 20 Crips Gang, and began to deal crack cocaine. Instead of using his unique talents to pursue his own ambitions and stand out from the rest, Snoop steadily succumbed to the typical ways of the hood. Days before graduation at Long Beach Polytechnic High School, Snoop decided he couldn’t take it anymore so he gave the faculty a reason to let him loose. As Snoop puts it in his book, “…I showed up in homeroom with the biggest, fattest blunt I could roll hanging out of the corner of my mouth” (pg 78). Due to the incident, Snoop was arrested and found himself behind bars for the first of many times as a young adult. Going down a vicious cycle, the boy who once looked like a promising standout, had sadly deferred to the route that most from the Long Beach ghetto took.
Like so many of us, Snoop didn’t believe in himself and feared going down the path less taken. He thought that he had no chance of making it big following his own ambitions. In 1988, however, his mindset began to change.
After years of pestering Snoop to pursue music, Warren G. finally convinced his best friend to give rapping another shot. With the assistance of a local buddy, Nate Dogg, the three of them put together a rap show for a party that Snoop was throwing. Snoop killed it that night and for weeks following the performance, friends and random strangers bombarded him with praise and compliments regarding his uniquely slow style.
Snoop considers this the turning point of his life. From that moment on, Snoop realized that there was more to him than just the tag “gangster.” As Snoop puts it on page 129, “I was sold on myself, and maybe for the first time in my life knew exactly where I was going…” Snoop had finally discovered his life purpose and realized that he possessed a unique rap style that mirrored his hazy personality. Exploiting the two simultaneously, he realized, could potentially change the rap game and help him escape the hood. Snoop knew exactly what to do next; he needed to prove to the world that he was special.
Determined to make it big, Warren G., Snoop Dogg, and Nate Dogg kept rapping together and named their group 213. As Snoop writes on page 132, “… we were after the whole enchilada.” Eventually, Warren G. caught Dr. Dre’s attention by slipping one of their demos into his half-brother’s party-music basket. Dre was astonished by Snoop’s skills and allowed Broadus to start working with him, using him as a stylistic foil to diversify his music. With the release of Dre’s album The Chronic in ‘92, the world was hit by Snoop Doggy Dogg, and the homie who was merely a feature on a few of Dre’s songs and homeless months before, instantly became the center of attention. In 1993, Dre helped Snoop release his solo album, Doggystyle, which was a record-breaking classic and proved to world, once and for all, that the creative genius was here to stay.
Snoop continued rapping throughout the ’90s, dropping multiple hits. He often incorporated messages into his rhymes and lyrics, one of which was the importance of staying true to himself.
“Cause it’s the O.G. D-O-double-G, L-B-C. Mad dogging niggas cause I don’t care, red jumpsuit with two braids in my hair.” — Snoop Dogg in his song “Murder Was the Case”
After his autobiography was released and at the turn of the new century, Snoop took his humorously unique ways to the acting industry, where his lackadaisical presence was greatly appreciated. Following this move, Snoop’s career branched into a multitude of directions, allowing him to cultivate his own TV series, host game shows, and entertain at events across the world.
Snoop is still at it today and has no intentions of slowing down, exhibiting his chill demeanor throughout everything that he does. He never fails to make us laugh in doing so.
In merely months back in the year ‘92, Snoop went from a nobody to a rising international star. If it wasn’t for Snoop’s self-discovery following his first performance in ’88, Broadus would have never been motivated to catch Dre’s attention and would have forever been trapped in the meaningless pursuit of the majority. It was during those long hours of contemplation in ’88 that Snoop realized just how pivotal it was that he seek his own path, sharpen his unique skills, and let his personality shine through in the process. Snoop was able to generate groundbreaking work in doing so. In explaining his mindset on page 133 of Tha Doggfather, Snoop asserts, “I’ve got my own approach, it’s 100 percent mine, and while it might often be imitated, it’s never been duplicated.” Snoop makes his case very clear to us readers: Sheer hard work will get us nowhere in life if we don’t bring a new perspective into the world. Let us learn from brother Snoop’s past and take away a significant lesson: Whatever we do with our lives, we must exploit our unique talents in a way that allows our identity to shine through. We shall not mimic successful people like Snoop, but accept who we are as individuals and roll with it. This is the key, and Snoop’s story is the evidence. As Snoop once said, “The best advice I've ever got is to be yourself. Stay true to who you are and what you stand for and you’ll go far in life.”