Snoop Dogg is one of the most famous (not to mention marketable) rappers on the planet, but Tha Doggfather may not have become the star that he is today if it wasn’t for 2Pac.
Snoop appeared as the latest guest on The 85 South Comedy Show, where he explained how his former Death Row labelmate taught him how to become a “star,” beginning with encouraging him to elevate his style and embrace his “pimp” persona.
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“I’m still dressing like a n-gga from the hood — khakis, Chucks,” Snoop said of his post-Doggystyle wardrobe. “That n-gga like, ‘Me and you finna have a meeting… We stepping our game up. We gotta change your look, Snoop Dogg. You a pimp, n-gga. Bitches love you. You fly. You gotta start showing your fly side!
“‘I’ma get you suited up.’ ‘I’ma call this nigga Dion Scott, get your suits fitted, get your hair laid, get your nails done. Put some pimpin’ on screen, n-gga.'”
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Snoop Dogg admitted he initially felt uncomfortable wearing such unfamiliar (not to mention tight-fitting) clothes — which were on full display in his and 2Pac’s “2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted” video in 1996 — until he grew into his new wardrobe and understood the lesson that ‘Pac was trying to teach him.
“He dressed me up in suits, Louis Vuitton, Gucci — shit I couldn’t even spell or pronounce! All this Italian shit,” he continued. “Just look at how I’m standing next to cuh when I’m wearing it. I’m trying to figure it out! I’m like, ‘Do I look right? I hope I don’t look sweet ’cause these pants tight as a muthafucka!’
“Once I got comfortable with it, then it was like, ‘OK, this n-gga’s teaching me how to be a star.’ Like, levels and layers. ‘We know you gangsta, dawg, but can you go higher than that? What if a n-gga call you to be in a movie where they want you to be a lawyer? What if a n-gga wants you to be a detective?'”
Delving deeper into 2Pac’s star quality, Snoop Dogg recalled hitting the studio with the All Eyez On Me rapper shortly after he was released from prison in 1995 and witnessing his relentless work ethic first-hand.
“We in the studio the first couple of nights [after] he get out. I got a room, he got a room. We make a song, we in that muthafucka listening to it for like four hours. Got bitches up in there. N-ggas like, ‘This shit banging!'” Snoop remembered.
“We got in this n-gga room, he on his fifth song. This n-gga make a song, as soon as it got off, ‘Pull the next beat up! We ain’t finna be listening to that shit, that’s the engineer’s job to mix that shit. Next song.'”
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Snoop went on to explain how 2Pac would often ask whoever was in the room to contribute a verse or play a beat, calling him “resourceful” and “a loving muthafucka in the studio.”
“[He was] not one of them n-ggas that’s in the studio like, ‘Man, get all these n-ggas outta here!’ He entertained that shit,” Snoop added. “I wasn’t a star ’til I was next to him; he showed me how to be a star. This n-gga was a star. Snoop Dogg was famous, but I didn’t know how to be a star.”
Snoop Dogg previously reflected on his relationship with 2Pac during an appearance on Logan Paul’s Impaulsive podcast in May, revealing he fainted when he visited the late rapper in hospital following the September 1996 shooting that led to his death.
“When we drive to Vegas to see Pac, we got to Suge house first, so we haven’t even seen Pac,” Snoop said. “We just talking to Suge, and he got the head wrapped up and he telling us what happened and [saying] ‘Pac gonna be alright, he going to pull through he got shot nine times before he going to be alright.’
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“We feeling like it’s going to be alright until we go to the hospital and see that he ain’t alright. He got tubes in him, and it’s like when I walked in like I could just feel that he wasn’t even there, and I fainted. Then his mother got me up and walked me to the bathroom, and had a conversation with me about being strong.”
