Nearly ten years ago I mysteriously received as many as three promotional copies of a particular album in the mail from Warner Bros., which was very odd as usually I had to hound some faceless entity in the publicity or promotions department on the phone just to get promo discs to review. This one came unsolicited and consecutively for three days. It was an artist I’d never heard of, Snoop Doggy Dogg and the disc was entitled respectively, Doggystyle. I was not a complete stranger to Rap or Hip Hop music, having a few old school faves like Grandmaster Flash and Run D.M.C, and even following a more locally based rapper Too Short come up from selling his own sexually explicit homemade tapes to gain record deals and national recognition. I was mildly aware of N.W.A. and the shaping of a west coast Gangsta style of Rap but I hadn’t heard of Snoop Doggy Dogg. Inundated by copies, I finally put one on and for the next six months I could scarcely remove it from my player. Doggystyle became my favorite rap record of all time. It was the most brilliant mix of style, musical reference (particular focus on George Clinton’s Parliament Funkedelic) and smooth vocal flow. Each song seemed to unroll a complex vignette with characters and a mood rich with imagery and a cinematic feeling, riddled with harsh urban realism like bullet holes sprayed from an AK across the body of a low-rider. It portrayed cops and the government and society in the truthful way that prompts protest from parents and organizations created to shield young decent folks from such harsh facts. Snoop also shamelessly endorsed and celebrated smoking pot.
I learned shortly after listening to the record that it debuted at number one on billboards hot 100, the first time ever for a debut artist to enter the chart at the number one position. This was no doubt fueled by the fact that Snoop (aka Calvin Broadus) was involved in a drive by shooting and faced charges as an accomplice to murder for driving the car that his bodyguard fired shots from, claiming self-defense. The situation was told from his perspective in the song “Murder Was The Case,” and Snoop was eventually acquitted of the charges completely, defended by high profile attorney Johnny Cochrane
In spite of all the hype, the disc really stood on it’s own in my mind as one of the most complete and evocative views inside the life of a smooth talking tale spinning southern California gangsta rapper. The aspects of his work that prompted a lot of criticism were the usual offenses pinned on most all rap records, the glorification of violence and the demeaning and derogatory treatment of women. I felt that there was indeed a lot of violence depicted but there seemed to be a hint of optimism and self-preservation that in the future the protagonist would break free of it. The commonplace negative portrayal of women is given a twist that’s so over the top it’s cartoon like and sort of negates itself. Doggystyle not only portrays the gritty realism of urban ghetto life but captures the groove of the street that isn’t necessarily negative. It’s a brilliant slice of life from a very tumultuous time in hip hop history, an essential release that has never been equaled, not even by Snoop himself, not that his subsequent records haven’t done well for him, He’s built an empire over the past ten years, branching into film, creating his own label, clothing line, action figure and now he even has his own television show featured on MTV called Doggy Fizzle Televizzle.
I caught an episode of this new show the other night and I hadn’t laughed so hard in ages. It was a very fast-paced series of vignettes, skits, fake advertisements for fictitious products or services, (Haterade, to replenish what your body needs to hate, a special herbal shampoo in a long phallic bottle that prompts an orgasmic response when used, “Oooh yeah, slap it daddy, slap it hard, slap me,”) questions from viewers, interviews with celebrities like Hugh Hefner (“Have you ever had a three-way? Have you ever had sex in this pool? Have you ever had sex with her?” as he holds up a photo of Oprah), Snoop playing an English teacher to a group of foreigners working towards citizenship, “Repeat after me ‘Fuck tha police’” then a quick black and white flashback to his last teaching experience as he leads a group of second graders chanting “Take Drugs” in unison. It was non-stop irreverent, ribald and just plain wrong, touching on issues of racism that probably had white liberals wincing in P.C. pain. In short it pushed out the boundaries of taste and humor into areas heretofore viewed as forbidden, much like Saturday Night Live did some 25 years ago, or like the first season of In Living Color. Doggy Fizzle Televizzle hit the comedy high marks by spoofing the current state of television and the reality-style programming that has taken the medium to it’s most brazenly low point. Somebody had to do it, and Snoop Dogg is having his day.