Snoop Dogg has revealed that he and 50 Cent have periodically given financial help to Hip Hop forefathers in need.
During a recent appearance on the All the Smoke podcast, the legendary West Coast rapper chimed in with his thoughts about Rakim and Scarface being rewarded with grant money amid Hip Hop 50 celebrations last year.
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“You’ve got to take care of your own, you’ve got to set an example,” he said at the 7:20 mark of the episode. “We do it privately. I’ve done it many years with some of the artists that needed help, that needed physical and financial help.
“It’s not a public thing for me. I’m not going to say, ‘I helped him.’ But when they did that publicly, that’s what it’s supposed to be.”
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Speaking to the “young generation,” he added: “Respect your elders because you making all this money — not that you have to — but if you love this rapper and respect this rapper, you see he’s down on his luck, he may need some money but he has pride. He can’t even ask you ’cause he used to be you.
“But you have enough man in you to say, ‘Unc, I’ma throw you something.’ There’s been many times where me and 50 Cent together have called some of our O.G.’s and put bags on him. And O.G. like, ‘Oh man, nah.’ We ain’t trying to hear that shit. We know you need it. Here, n-gga.”
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He continued: “That’s what it gotta be! But that’s who we are, that’s who me and 50 is. I can’t speak for everybody else, but if any O.G. that me and him respect — it’s happened a couple of times, that’s why I can bring his name up. I don’t have to say the person or the people.
“But [50] feel like I feel. If it’s a O.G. that need it, that’s down, that don’t know how to ask for it, I put it in. [Sometimes] they’re like, ‘Oh, 50 just…’ And I’m like, ‘Damn, he beat me to it.'”
In October, Scarface and Rakim became the inaugural recipients of a new grant from the Paid In Full Foundation worth $500,000. The two MCs were honored at the foundation’s Hip Hop Grandmaster Awards held in Las Vegas in November.
The event was thrown by Nas, as well as Ben Horowitz, co-founder of the venture capital firm Andreesen Horowitz, and Ben’s wife Felicia.
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In the past, Horowitz was an early investor in the lyric annotation site Genius (then known as Rap Genius) and has been friends with Nas for many years.
News of the Paid In Full Foundation and Grandmaster Awards were first revealed by music executive Steve Stoute on an episode of the Rap Radar podcast.
“Myself, Ben Horowitz, Fab 5 Freddy, QD3, Felicia Horowitz, Ben’s wife — we have a fund, a charity called Paid In Full,” he said. “And on November 17, we are honoring those who have led the culture, but have not received the financial rewards that’s on par with their cultural contribution.
“And we’re giving significant money, a half a million dollars, and health care, to these people who we believe were contributors who didn’t get what they deserved.”
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Stoute did not clarify in the interview whether Scarface and Rakim would each receive $500,000, if that sum would be split equally between them or if that was the total amount of the grant that would be paid out to multiple recipients over the course of a number of years, nor did he reveal details about the health care offered.
