Snoop Dogg has surprised fans by giving the nod to the East Coast rather than his native West Coast when it comes to who’s had a bigger impact on Hip Hop.
With Snoop’s beloved Los Angeles Lakers gearing up to take on the Golden State Warriors, the Death Row legend stopped by ESPN’s First Take on Tuesday (May 2) alongside host Stephen A. Smith where rap became a temporary topic of discussion.
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“Definitely East Coast because East Coast started Hip Hop,” Snoop explained. “It has the biggest impact where it was born, where it was growth, where it was developed is always gonna be the biggest impact.
“Because that’s the epicenter, that’s the foundation, that’s where it began. It’s the East Coast.”
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Snoop added that a lot of the rappers from the West Coast imitated those they saw thriving on the East Coast. “All of the rappers that started in New York in the beginning was our foundation,” he continued.
“We learned from them, we got our style from them, we got our swag from them, we got our know how to get it together from them, our stage presence — everything from RUN-D.M.C., LL COOL J, Grandmaster Flash, to people who didn’t have no record deals. They set the foundation.”
Fans chimed in under The Hip-Hop Wolf’s repost of the clip and while some respected his opinion, others felt he should have an allegiance to the coast that raised him.
“Crazy Snoop would say this. PAC would be appalled,” one person wrote while another chimed in: “He’s right but idk how long that will be true. NY hasn’t been the Mecca of hiphop in over a decade. And a lot of their gangbanging comes from the westcoast.”
When Snoop Dogg made his Top 10 rappers of all-time list in 2020, there was a New York native at the top as Slick Rick’s name sat above the rest.
Elsewhere during his ESPN appearance, Snoop also shed light on how he recently joined an ownership group led by Hollywood film producer Neko Sparks to purchase the NHL’s Ottawa Senators.
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“This opportunity came for me to be a part of the ownership of the Ottawa Senators so I jumped on it,” he said. “And the plan that we have is to go and build a Snoop Youth Hockey League outside of Canada so kids in urban communities can learn about hockey [and] can play the sport.”
