DETROIT CITI'7EN ( upplement to the Michigan Ctiizen) Week of Dec. 19 - 26, 1993 Page 8
By TUREKA TURK ! Born in 1971, in Long
Snoop Doggy Dogg i I Beach, California (south
po ing o_!l the backcover of I of Compton), Snoop wa
hi new release looking I glad to see the ag� of 21
"hardcore" with a joint in because, a lot of his bo�s
hi mouth, eyes off to no couldn t even make It
where in particular. The there.
future maybe.
Girls squeal about how uFOR A BLACK man
fine the lim 22-year-old to go to a funeral for one of
i , big braids in his
hai r and all. They
think that the
"hardcore" 10 k in
hi eyes and that in­
nocent mile is
cxy. They think
that hi rhyming
voice, reminiscent
o Curti Mayfield,
is a tum n.
Parent' winc
when they hear
n op s vice cv n
when they don't
kn w who hi.
They' just he r "We
don \t love them
ho ." and jump to
their conclusions
about rap star and
how they poi on
mind. They can't
comprehend why
their children con-,
tinuou lyIisten to
"gang ta rap" ince
it 0 violent, dis­
respectful, and vul­
gar. They don't
know the differ­
cnce bctween
Luther Cam pbell
and no p Doggy
Dogg. They really
don't want to.
For go d r a­
'on, the difference
ctwecn n p and
the r e s t of the
"gang ta rapper "
out and about n
the rap chart
hould be made
clear. vcryone
should know that
gang ta rapper
aren't anything other than I h i h d . h'
tre t griot . It i from I I .g�a u a t t �, t at
. orne "gang ta rapper" nothin unu ual h ay.
that th 'e oblivi usly out I no p like many y ung
of touch with their wn ' Black childr n, wa rai cd
community and children I by hi 1 Jot}) r, a migrant
will find out what' rally fr m Mi si ippi, alon .
going n. no p may b a I Hi ather, al 0 from the
good I ink. uth wa p rt of th g -
to record underground
tape when he got out
the p I!.. Warren G, a OJ
and one of Snoop's
boys , got down with
school into a big huddle, II Sno p and they started
vibing with the flow of it ell ing the tape in the
all. neighb rhood. Warr n G,
the brother of fonn er NW A
m m ber Dr. Ore, gay the
I tap t hi brother and Ore
hi db' wa impre d. Th end
m t In n -
u know it, th 'd I
three hundred p 0-
I
pIe there. So I just get on
the mic and start bustin'.
And the crowd gettin' big­
ger and bigger. Then the
school counselors thing
we got a fight goin' on and
they get in the middle of it
and it'd just be nigg-s in
ther rappiri'. They'd say
we can't be doin' this but
when I tell them more
about it, they start un­
derstandin' what we was
up to and it was cool,"
Snoop recounts.
Back in tho e days,
older p ople didn't mind
rap 0 long as it kept kid
oft' of the treet and off
of ach ther ' head.
But then om th ing
w nt ,wrong. Outsid in-'
fluenc began to cr ep
into noop's life in a big
way.
Like rap artists, Souls
of Mi chief ay, "Some­
times it get a little hectic
out there."
After graduation,
Snoop was arrested by
n undercover cop for
po .se sion for al of
cocaine and entenced
to a year in county jai 1. It
was in jail that Snoop
got a lot of the stori he
rap about. In fact, he'd
p rform for them every ,
night.
The inmate told
noop that he wa to
talented to be in pen and
that h should do some­
thing with him elf. It
made him think becaus
"that' a place where
muthafuc--- don't give
a f--'- about you".
See SNOOP,' P ge 6
Reprinted from the Michigan Citizen Newspaper
pel group The Varnado
Brothers before moving to
Detroit.
Snoop, a middle child
in a family full of boy ,
was raised in the Baptist
church, Golgotha Trinity
Baptist Church to be exact,
where he played the piano,
sang in the youth choir and
was a member of the bas-
ways of school and started
to respect the art form.
"When rap first came out,
every rapper wa real.
There wasn't no pop rap­
pers. Everybody was
hard," ,Snoop says.
Spontaneous chool
jams would start in the
hallways that would draw
kids from allover the
k tball team.
In coo I Sn op wa
like th one kid in cIa s
that helped you get
through t e day because of "IT
hi j kes and extreme wi t. I d
. ar un
He like the crowd. It wa I d . ,
ar und that time that he I f 010
tarted rhyming in th hall- I bor li�