Doggystyle, a timeless classic (A GOOD READ)

[West Coast Veteran]

By Bomani Jones

To see Snoop Dogg now is to see a faux pimp in action. Seemingly conjoined at the hip with Bishop Don Magic Juan ? a real life preachin' pimp ? Snoop has blown the dust off the pimp character, reviving it from a controversial relic of blaxploitation and turning it into acceptable contemporary chic.
But the pimping Snoop we see today is at the culmination of a metamorphosis in his persona. While his C'd-out antics constantly remind the world that Snoop, nee Calvin Broadus, is a gangbanging Crip, this is not the gangsta that America fell in love with a decade ago. The cases he has caught lately are far from the murder charges he was acquitted of in 1993, and it's unlikely that he'll proclaim his innocence ever again on MTV after emerging from a coffin. And never again will he be seen jubilantly opening a freezer that looks like the Fort Knox of Forties.

Doggystyle seems so far away.

It's impossible not to look at Doggystyle ? Snoop's first and only classic ? without seeing the difference a decade can make. After featured spots on two classic singles ("Deep Cover" and "Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang") and his introduction to the spotlight on Dr. Dre's landmark The Chronic, Snoop was hip hop's brightest rising star.

It's impossible not to look at Doggystyle ? Snoop's first and only classic ? without seeing the difference a decade can make.
Then came his August 1993 arrest for murder. The charges gave unprecedented credibility to Snoop's gangsta image and shrank the gap between the realities of the gangstas and gangsters that pop culture was so ready to celebrate. It turned Snoop into the poster-child for everything that was wrong with rap music, and the easiest target for white right-wingers and conservative blacks aiming to demonize rap music (most notably Steamrollin' Reverend Calvin Butts, Dionne Warrick, and strange bedfellows C. Dolores Tucker and Bill Bennett). The publicity made Snoop's album one of the most highly anticipated debuts ever.

Doggystyle shipped platinum, but was unable to escape accusations that it blatantly promoted misogyny and supported drug abuse. However, this was not a Too $hort record. It lacked the social relevance of the West Coast's most significant albums up to that point, NWA's Straight Outta Compton and Ice Cube's Amerikkka's Most Wanted and Death Certificate, but it wasn't half as ignorant as what, unfortunately, may have been the West's most influential album, NWA's Efil4zaggin. All this was nearly impossible to see through the maelstrom of controversy. Released around the time a Texas man claimed that a 2Pac album made him shoot a police officer, a year after the Los Angeles Riots and the furor over Ice-T's "Cop Killer," and a mere three months after Snoop's arrest, Doggystyle was the first debut album to ever enter the Billboard charts at #1.

Had the album not been a banger, the buzz around it would have dulled quickly. In tandem with The Chronic, it was hailed as one of West Coast rap's twin towers, and that remains the case ten years later. But it's not until you look at it anachronistically, separating it from other rap-related ruckus of the day, that you can take Doggystyle for what it is ? one helluva good time, the height of "gang member rap," a blaxploited view of the world from the eyes of a barely legal man.

This wasn't "gangsta rap," because Snoop never came across as a gangster. Sure, he's a Crip, but so are thousands of others in Los Angeles. It was quite clear that he had been around the block a few times ? which is sufficient in establishing a gangsta persona to the untrained eye ? but he was edgy without being overpoweringly threatening. Should you not understand the difference between a gangster and a gang member, I'll put it like this: Suge Knight is a gangster, but Snoop is a gang member. Snoop was more hustler than menace, with a cool that dripped in everything he did.

His cool seemed to be manufactured in a time machine. The perm, the obsession with the pimp culture and the slow, drawling tone of voice were more influenced by Max Julien and Ron O'Neal than Rakim. In fact, Doggystyle starts with the "Bathtub" interlude, and any Superfly enthusiast has trouble thinking about a tub without remembering the movie (or hearing "Give Me Your Love," for that matter). And while the video for "Doggy Dogg World" was an obvious rehash of '70s soul music and cinema, other tracks go back to that time indirectly. "Lodi Dodi," a remake of a similarly named Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick classic, is clearly homage paid to a hip hop pioneer, but where do you think Rick formulated his persona? The breezy "Shiznit" was as cool as the other side of the pillow and felt older, even though it's got no discernible sample. Hell, even half of the interludes sound like outtakes from The Mack.

As a result, the pimp was resurrected and welcomed with open arms by a politically correct culture that helped to bury it almost 30 years before. Would Pimps Up, Hoes Down or American Pimp have been produced without Doggystyle? Would anyone have ever bothered to make the Bishop an A-list star? Would the public's ear have been bludgeoned by 50 Cent's Snoop-assisted "P.I.M.P" otherwise? Sure, Ice-T and his idol, Iceberg Slim, had roles re-establishing the pimp life in pop culture, but Ice was too menacing (Pimps Up, Hoes Down proves that unlike play-pimps, real pimps can make skin crawl) and books aren't piped into homes with real-life pictures.

That retro feel wasn't Doggystyle's only allure. It's just that, though they weren't throwaways, the harder and more contemporary tracks weren't as good as the others. The standouts, however, have become canonical. "Gin and Juice" surely did wonders for sales of Seagram's Extra Dry (no one's saying that's a good thing), and "Who Am I? (What's My Name) slapped an interpolation of "Atomic Dog" on top of an irrepressible bass line to make a classic. "Gz and Hustlas" is one of the best piano tracks ever recorded, with Dre capturing the sound of a live band with brilliant results. And considering Snoop's legal situation at the time, "Murder Was the Case" couldn't be ignored. The only problem was that even though the song was timely, it was neither particularly insightful nor vivid. Such a problem would have been exacerbated were the goal of this album to paint a portrait of the perils of South Central Los Angeles like Straight Outta Compton. Instead, it was a welcome change of pace from the hedonism of the rest of the LP.

And on a disc full of hedonism, "Ain't No Fun (If the Homies Can't Have None)" is the most hedonistic, and may be the most enduring. Another trip in Dre's way-back machine, it's a goofy extension of a line that only a 20-year-old would think was a cool come-on. It's offensive to most enlightened women. And in spite of all those things, it has an overpowering ability to make people shake their asses and sing along. For a rapper to be able to do that without sounding pretentious (like P. Diddy) or soft (a la Hammer) is a serious feat, and "Ain't No Fun" is almost an instruction manual for those who dare try to pull it off.

Kevin Powell once called Snoop hip hop's first "organic" superstar. There was no carefully sculpted image, no larger cause, agenda or noteworthy characteristic that separated Calvin Broadus from most cats on the block. As hip hop snuck into the mainstream, this normalcy made Snoop into a superstar. It was impossible to turn on MTV and not see him sitting on a porch getting his hair braided, throwing up gang signs, or throwing on one of the "chronic" baseball caps in the early '90s.

Ten years later, 50 Cent is following in Snoop's footsteps. 50's debut album, Get Rich or Die Trying, has broken Snoop's record for best-selling rap debut. He's partnered with established stars (and personal brands) Eminem and Dr. Dre in a kind of three-tiered mentoring program, where the advice trickles down from Dre, through Em, to 50. And despite 50's nine bullet wounds and never-ending tough talk, his disarming singsong melodies and commercial appeal have made us forget how dangerous and deadly gangsters actually are, exactly the same way Snoop did with pimps.

Meanwhile, Snoop Dogg remade himself into some sort of American institution. Not quite like apple pie or Betsy Ross, but right up there with the Cadillac.

Harry Allen, who says he still takes written notes of commercials that prominently feature hip hop artists, must have dusted off his best Mont Blanc when he saw Snoop performing the theme to Monday Night Football with Hank Williams, Jr. (he whose image is wrapped in the Stars and Bars made the line "the South shall rise again" nouveau haute). Months later, his spot shilling AOL for Broadband ran about one mi'nizzle before he was Nokia's halftime entertainment during the Sugar Bowl. Snoop has become rap's most marketable commodity. Besides being an elder statesman of rap, his image has been reduced to ? or broadened to include, depending on perspective ? a cuddly, permed-out "recovering" stoner, more likely to do a television segment on coaching his son's football team than to mean-mug for the camera in interviews and videos.

And though it may take a strong memory to remember, this all started with Doggystyle, one of hip hop's guiltiest pleasures. There's neither a purpose nor a plan. It is simply a good time for the audience, and any deeper analysis wouldn't be accurate. Ten years later, it's easier to see how Snoop could wind up with Hank Williams, Jr. Detach this album from a murder rap (which he beat, it must be said), the explosive scene that was early '90s Southern California, and the height of media watchdog groups, and it's a party record with magnificent production and one of the most recognizable voices in hip hop. It wasn't lyrical genius. It cursed America with an annoying, incurable, epidemic case of the izzles. But over Dre's wizardry on the boards, it was a clinic on how to effortlessly ride a beat, a talent in shorter supply than most pedestrian observers take note of.

But it's not the revolution or the counter-revolution, and Snoop was neither a savior nor anti-Christ. In 1993, he was a kid not much older than I am now, a guy who watched a whole lot of movies and wrote an album about it. The album wasn't scary or looming, nor was it encouraging or enlightened. It was party record, and a great one at that. For some, that reality took ten years to realize.

[nibs]

it's a decent article.

the main problem i have is that snoop's image really hasn't changed.  how can a person point to snoops first album and call that the beginning of a metamorphosis???  how can his first album be a change???  if snoop was incorporating elements of that pimp image in his first album, then there really isn't this metamorphisis from gangbanging ass criminal -> pimp.  he's always portrayed himself as a "pimp" with gang ties or whatever.

snoop never kicked the hardest or most gangsta rhymes, in the early days he left that tha dogg pound, daz and kurupt.  in the mid 90's he had the lbc crew around him kicking that gangsta shit.  now he has the eastsidaz and e-white and all of them.  but it's always been snoop the hustla/pimp hanging around with gangstaz.  if snoop rhymes about pimpin' more now, whatever.  he's made more money, ran through more bitches...etc.  but snoop hasn't changed.

they mentioned the murder trial, even then it was clear.  snoop didn't shoot anybody.  snoop was hanging out with some gangstaz and his body gaurd ended up shooting somebody.

if people want to write articles about metamorphosis, write about ice cube.  cube went from some loc'd out gangsta in the n.w.a. days, to the n.o.i. influenced ghetto correspondent, to the don mega, and now back to the gangsta. write about dr dre.  with nwa and the early row he was gangsta.  then he turned his back on gangsta shit after suge bitched him out, now he's embracing it again.  depending on who writes the song for dr dre, you really have no idea what he'll be portraying himself as.

but to claim that snoop has made this huge metamorphosis as this guy has done is to ignore the gangsta content on doggystyle, is to ignore that snoop has always relied on his crews for his main clout (dpg, lbc crew, tha eastsidaz), is to ignore that other than threatening the cops on 1-8-7 (and who doesn't say fuck the police), snoop has never had the most gangsta rhymes.

[Z the laidback Virus]

Nibs is right. Snoop hasn't really transformed that much,he's only more expressive with his pimp image these days. He has really allways relied on his crew to bring the gangsta'd out image. Soopafly is the only other pimp of Snoops crew and to me,he often functions as an elongation of Snoop by sharing his image. Everyone else, Daz,Kurupt,Rage,RBX,Eastsidaz,Bad Azz and even the No Limit roster were the (pretended) gangstas he rolled with.

[NobodyButMe]

well i agree with the writer of the article, if only because snoop (is the only one out of all the people that ya'll mentioned) that i really care to hear about. all them others, rbx, daz, soopa, honestly, who cares? i couldn't give two shits about daz or rbx or rage or tha eastsidaz.

snoop is a part of america and is now a huge part of our society....i didn't get the feeling that he was talking about a metamorphasis of snoop, but a metamorphasis of american culture. he pointed to hank williams, apple pie, and snoop. and it's true and a point often overlooked. america has embraced snoop to the point where MY PARENTS know his songs.

reading it, i felt a feeling of nostalgia of the good old days of rap....