Snoop Dogg has saluted Kendrick Lamar for helping bring peace between Los Angeles’ various gangs during his beef with Drake.
Referencing Vince Staples‘ comments that L.A. gangs have long had a sense of unity but it was only now being publicized, Snoop told Complex: “What Vince is saying is that a lot of neighborhoods have been uniting for a long time behind closed doors, but what Kendrick did was, he united the whole city, based off him being a king.
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“Taking this violent situation, which is a rap beef, and creating peace and giving the homies an opportunity to come on stage, to engage in his video, to be a part of his movement and to also move like he moves.”
He added: “Because if you’re going to move with Kendrick, you gotta move like Kendrick. He’s about peace. He’s about love. He ain’t from no gang. He’s from a city full of gangs and he unites cities. So that’s what this was about.
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“It’s a good move for the whole West Coast culture as far as rap is concerned because violence has always been a lead thing for us on our side. So if you can take a violent rap or a violent song and create peace out of it, he should be commended for that.”
Watch his comments at the 10:27 mark below.
During his Pop Out concert in Inglewood in June, Kendrick Lamar brought out members of the Bloods and Crips on stage to close the show in a bid to bridge divisions in the city.
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The Compton native also addressed the audience, saying: “This shit making me emotional. We been fucked up since Nipsey [Hussle] died. We been fucked up since Kobe [Bryant] died. This is unity at its finest.
“We done lost a lot of homies to this music shit, to this street shit. For all of us to be together on stage, that shit is special. Everybody on this stage got fallen soldiers.”
The moment also struck a chord with fellow West Coast rap veteran DJ Quik, who admitted that he “cried” watching the show online after missing out on being there in person.
“I was knee deep in Canada when all that unity happened,” he told AllHipHop. “I cried myself to sleep that night in the dumb-ass Hilton hotel looking at you guys. I started hating.”
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Quik, who was on tour in Canada with Snoop Dogg and Warren G at the time, added: “Snoop tried to fly us back for the Pop Out. He tried to charter a jet and it didn’t work out logistically because we would have missed our show in Ottawa, Canada. But we sat there steaming. I was steaming!”
