As the sun rotates and his game grows bigger, it’s now become easy to forget just how Snoop Dogg became a pop culture legend. It was Doggystyle, his Death Row debut, that catapulted him to the forefront of mid-’90s hip hop. In celebration of a quarter-century of G Funk, we’re breaking down all the samples – both Dre-flipped and Snoop-interpolated – on the records three era-defining singles!
The story of Andre Young is the story of the West Coast.
In reality, it’s hardly that simple, but it’s undeniable that California’s hip hop scene – long gestating with guidance from Too $hort and Ice-T – came to prominence alongside the Compton-born rapper-producer. The explosive sonic collage of “Straight Outta Compton,” the debut single from rebellious group N.W.A, thrust the then-maligned region into the mainstream whilst simultaneously crowning the young funk-fond producer a national tastemaker.
Dre’s break from N.W.A in 1991 gave him the opportunity to exercise newfound creative freedom, a privilege he would use to hone a definitive West Coast sound and propel the scene to further success. The advent of G-Funk remains a watershed moment in the history of hip hop, offering an alternative to the dusty boom-bap sounds of New York. The roster that Dre, Suge and The D.O.C. assembled at their own Death Row Records would staff the subgenre: of these signees, Snoop Dogg was undeniably the most marketable.
A lanky pot-smoker sporting a delivery that would soon become one of hip hop’s most distinctive, Snoop was the personification of laid-back Californian attitude. Calvin Broadus’ veil of ice cold indifference informed his musical contention, one preoccupied with the slower side of the West Coast experience. It’s no coincidence that Snoop’s most famous refrain perfectly reflects his place in popular culture:
Rollin’ down the street, smokin’ indo
Sippin’ on gin and juice…”
That’s not to malign the gangsterism of Doggystyle, an issue which came to dominate the greater cultural dialogue surrounding the record. If all publicity is good publicity, then Snoop had an inside edge: the emcee was arrested in September ‘93 – three months prior to Doggystyle – and charged with second-degree murder alongside his bodyguard. The shooting happened in August, but Snoop managed to lie low long enough to make it to the 1993 VMAs, where he presented Best R&B Video alongside Dr. Dre and George Clinton.
Snoop walked away from the ‘93 VMAs with little more than a Best Rap Video statuette, a fact that seems surreal a quarter-of-a-decade on. In many ways, Doggystyle made good on the promise of The Chronic, outselling the already quadruple-platinum effort and enshrining Death Row as a new West Coast powerhouse. It continued to pioneer G-Funk as a subgenre, further enshrining its most recognisable tenets – P-Funk interpolations, world-building self-samples and Snoop’s own distinctive drawl – and setting the stage for the ascension of the G Funk Era.
If you’ve been around for a while, you’d know that we usually break down the full LP, however between the samples and what we had to say about them, Doggystyle was just too long. In celebration of Doggystyle’s enduring influence – it’s now somewhere near 200 years old in dog years, given that Snoop’s a Doberman Pinscher – we’re breaking down the samples on the albums’ three MTV-dominating singles.
Breaking Down Doggystyle: The Samples
“Who Am I? (What’s My Name?)“
The fully-fleshed out sample that introduces Snoop’s #1 hit is lifted from The Counts’ “Pack of Lies.” An obscure Detroit-based soul/funk outfit, The Fabulous Counts – as they were originally known – cut their teeth recording demos throughout the late ‘60s, eventually dropping the adjective from their name and releasing their debut album, What’s Up Front That-Counts, in 1971. “Pack of Lies” was one of just six cuts on the LP.
The seldom-sampled act have nonetheless had their fair share of starring features, appearing on tracks by Eric B. & Rakim, Kanye West, Dilated Peoples, The 45 King and Roxanne Shante.
Dre interpolates the bass from a familiar source: Funkadelic’s “(Not Just) Knee Deep,” from which he similarly sampled on “G Funk Intro.”
Interesting, this track marks the equal-highest charting appearance of the sample: it peaked at #8 on the Billboard Hot 100, the exact same place that “Fuck Wit Dre Day” landed earlier the same year. De La Soul’s “Me, Myself and I,” which also made use of the P-Funk track, peaked at #34 despite very positive critical reception. That song was at a significant commercial disadvantage: hip hop was still battling for mainstream recognition in ‘89, and the closest thing we got to a hip hop #1 was Janet Jackson’s new jack swing jam, “Miss You Much.”
The vocal sample that first appears at 0:10 – “the bomb!” – is again courtesy of George Clinton and Parliament. It’s sampled from the spoken intro to the group’s “P-Funk (Wants To Get Funked Up),” the first single and opening track from their much-lauded fourth studio album, Mothership Connection. That album marked the group’s first concerted effort at enshrining their mythology, a kaleidoscopic view of afrocentricity that’s since been a major influence on subsequent artists.
The track is another bit player in West Coast hip hop, appearing on N.W.A’s “1-900-2 Compton,” Dre’s own “The Roach (Chronic Outro)” and other non-Dre produced cuts such as Ice Cube’s “Say Hi To The Bad Guy,” “Dirty Mack” and “The Bomb.” It also graced Del the Funky Homosapien’s “Sunny Meadowz” – no surprise, seeing as Cube helped produce his nephew’s debut.
The bassline that enters alongside Snoop’s first verse at 0:24 is interpolated from an unreleased demo cut by Snoop and Dre in the years prior to Doggystyle. “Dope Slang Symphony,” as it has been christened, has appeared online in the years since, offering a unique window into the writing process employed by Dre and Snoop. In interpolating the best elements of unreleased demos, the duo seem to have mixed-and-matched elements from different ideas to create complete tracks.
The next interpolation is also from a Dre/Snoop collaboration, albeit a more official one. At 0:44, Snoop makes reference to the hook of Dre’s “Rat-Tat-Tat-Tat,” a cut from The Chronic. On that track, Dre and Snoop throw the chorus back and forth between each other, a testament to their undeniable musical chemistry. The original refrain is below, with Dre’s contributions italicised:
And I
Never hesitate to put a nigga on his back
Rat-tat-tat-tat tat ta tat, like that…”
Now take Snoop’s self-interpolation on “Who Am I? (What’s My Name?),” with Dre’s interjection italicised:
It’s like that and as a matter of fact
Rat-tat-tat-tat!
‘Cause I never hesitate to put a nigga on his back…”
Snoop immediately follows up his own Chronic reference with another, this time from Dre himself. He lifts two bars from Chronic cut “Deeez Nuuuts,” which featured Snoop, Daz, Warren G and Nate Dogg, rapping:
Yeah, so peep out the manuscript
You see that it’s a must we drop gangsta shit…”
It’s almost a verbatim flip of his earlier words, though he changes the pronoun to “we” to celebrate his funky rapport with the Dogg.
Dre’s love of Parliament samples coincidentally handed Snoop one of his best hooks. It’s just coincidence that the hook sampled from George Clinton’s “Atomic Dog” fits Snoop’s original name, Snoop Doggy Dogg, perfectly. At the 1 minute mark, he interpolates Clinton’s titular refrain, wading into the sample.
Later in the track, at 1:54, he samples another element of Clinton’s track, one which has since become largely synonymous with the L.A. emcee. The talkbox-filtered “bow wow wow, yippy yo, yippy yay” chant had previously been interpolated by Snoop on Dre’s hit, “Fuck Wit Dre Day (And Everybody’s Celebratin’),” so it only makes sense that he remind audiences of his pedigree on his own debut single.
Dre follows through with another sample pulled from Parliament’s 1975 record Mothership Connection, though this time, he takes it direct from the source. The wordless vocals that bridge the end of the hook and the start of Snoop’s second verse are originally from “Give Up The Funk (Tear The Roof Off the Sucker),” arguably their most famous hit single.
Though the P-Funk track has been a staple of hip hop since the genre’s infancy, Dre never again revisited the prominent Parliament cut. It was, however, sampled by producer Sir Jinx on a 1992 Ice-T and Ice Cube collaboration.
At 1:32, Snoops threatens to carry out a “187 on a motherfuckin’ cop,” harking back to his debut appearance on wax. Snoop landed his first feature on Dr. Dre’s debut single, “Deep Cover,” which was released alongside the 1992 film of the same name. Dre has already interpolated the lyric preceding this one on “G-Funk Intro”: “yeah, and you don’t stop…”
In the original single, Snoop raps “cause it’s a 187 on an undercover cop.” Now totally unbridled by film studio censorship, he makes the phrase more confrontational.
“Gin and Juice“
The first sample on “Gin and Juice” doesn’t kick in until halfway through the first verse, and even then, it’s hard to tell it’s entered at all. Dre takes the opening guitar riff from George McCrae’s “I Get Lifted,” a 1974 soul song from his debut album, Rock Your Baby. The track is McCrae’s most sampled, later appearing on DJ Quik’s G-Funk jam “Diggin’ U Out.” What’s more, KC and the Sunshine Band released a cover version just one year later: that rendition, also a popular sample, appeared on both Dre’s “Lil Ghetto Boy” and N.W.A’s “Quiet On Tha Set.”
Dre’s sample is easier to hear once you’ve checked out the music video, which features a narrative opening and slightly altered introduction that better isolates McCrae’s riff. It first appears at 0:46. After you’ve checked that out, head to the album cut and listen from 0:44 onward: though it’s drowned out by the dominant synth lines and Snoop’s own drawl, you can hear the rhythmic hits of the lick underpinning the verse.
At 0:57 on the album edit, Snoop interpolates yet another of his high profile guest features, this time taking a famous lyric from Dr. Dre’s The Chronic classic, “Bitches Ain’t Shit.” The bar in question is straight to the point:
We don’t love them hoes…”
That track, which features Snoop, Jewell and Tha Dogg Pound, finds Dre dissing Eazy-E for his continued association with N.W.A manager Jerry Heller whilst Snoop recounts a tale of heartbreak.
The titular refrain is actually an interpolation: Snoop borrows a melody from Ohio R&B outfit Slave, who experienced their biggest successes in the late ‘70s. Slave percussionist Steve Arrington was previously sampled on N.W.A’s “Gangsta Gangsta,” and Snoop would interpolate Arrington’s “Nobody Can Be You” on 1994’s “21 Jumpstreet.”
“Watching You” was included on 1980’s Stone Jam, their fifth studio LP. Though a largely forgotten effort, Run-DMC’s Jam Master Jay named as one of his favourite albums in a 1985 Spin Magazine profile. Pharrell interpolated a separate section of the same track on Snoop’s 2004 Neptunes-produced single, “Let’s Get Blown.”
“Doggy Dogg World“
The drums that kickstart “Doggy Dogg World” – that’s at 0:34 when the “Chronic Relief Intro” is included in the runtime – are courtesy of none other than George Clinton. They’re taken from “I Didn’t Come Rhythm,” one of more than 100 brief, sample-read tracks included on Clinton’s 1993 stems LP, Sample Some Of Disc – Sample Some Of D.A.T: Volume 1. Whilst this twenty-second rhythm is one of just two tracks on the record to have been actually sampled, it’s been utilised on high profile releases such as Nas’ “Represent” and Gang Starr’s “Blowin’ Up The Spot” and “Above The Clouds.”
The sharp, airy vocal hit that punctuates the verses starting at 0:36 – that’s 0:02 without the intro – is taken from a surprisingly famous disco hit. It’s a sample of The Emotions’ “Best Of My Love,” written by Maurice White and Al McKay of frequent collaborators Earth, Wind and Fire.
Not only was the 1977 single the group’s only song to hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, it stayed there for a whole five weeks, ultimately giving the group their most successful LP and netting them a Grammy. It’s since been sampled on more than 50 tracks, including work by De La Soul, 3rd Bass and Killer Mike.
Snoop juxtaposes the innocent and perverse like only he could, interpolating a classic childhood rhyme but immediately following it up with some lewd braggadocio. Skim ahead to 1:12, where he raps:
It’s the knick-knack, patty-whack
I still got the biggest sack!”
Though an early version of the rhyme was published in 1906, there’s no indication as to who originally composed the tune, as is often the case with these orally proliferated tunes. The melody itself was used in Barney & Friends’ “I Love You,” a mid-’90s kids TV classic-turned-Guantanamo Bay torture tool.
The track’s chorus, which features the titular phrase, is an interpolation and a pun rolled into one. Snoop takes a generous cue from Richard Fields’ “If It Ain’t One Thing… It’s Another,” which goes:
It’s a crazy, mixed-up world
It’s a dog-eat-dog world…”
Fields’ track, released in 1982, marks the only time he charted on the Billboard 100. Snoop, of course, continues to run with his dogg-centric identity, changing the lyrics to suit:
It’s a crazy, mixed-up world
It’s a doggy dogg world…”
The chorus is sung by Death Row songstress Nancy Fletcher and the members of The Dramatics, an R&B outfit who experienced their greatest successes throughout the ‘70s. Snoop’s choice to include them on the track gave them a late-career revival.
At 1:55 on “Doggy Dogg World,” there’s a four-note synthesizer scale that lifts from subdued to almost ear-piercing. This distinctive pattern is an interpolation of Kool & The Gang’s “Summer Madness,” a 1974 instrumental track that’s since become a favourite amongst hip hop producers.
You might recognise the same sound from DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince’s “Summertime,” Erykah Badu’s “Certainly (Flipped It)” or Ice Cube’s “You Know How We Do It.”
Funk, Indo, Gin & Juice: Doggystyle‘s Legacy
Snoop’s debut was always primed to be Death Row’s most commercially successful moment. The groundwork laid by ‘92’s The Chronic established Dre as a reliable solo artist and Death Row as a credible label, and the concerted effort to push Snoop to the fore via high-profile guest spots made him one of the hottest acts in hip hop. Whilst it’s important to remember that computerised sales data was only introduced two years prior, Snoop’s first week figures – a mean 803,000 units – made Doggystyle the fastest selling debut of all time.
It was a record that wouldn’t stand for long, but an important one nonetheless. The enormity wasn’t lost on Geoff Mayfield of Billboard. “It’s time for people to stop saying that rap will soon die out,” said the associate director of charts/retail. “The startling showing of Snoop’s album proves rap is clearly a huge part of mainstream pop music.” Indeed, the sales didn’t stop there, and as of the 22nd anniversary in 2015, the record had sold an incredible 11 million units worldwide, 7 million of those within the US.
The duo were acquitted of second-degree muder in February ‘96, at which point Snoop started working on his sophomore effort, Tha Doggfather. The record was a departure from the sounds and content of Doggystyle: post-trial, Snoop softened his edge, and Death Row CEO Suge Knight prevented him from working with Dr. Dre, who’d left the label in March of that year.
Widely regarded as a middling effort, Tha Doggfather had sold 1.3 million units by the end of ‘96. Though an impressive haul, it would ultimately be Snoop’s second-lowest selling album of the ‘90s: Tha Game Is To Be Sold, Not To Be Told, his No Limit debut, shipped 1.7 million units in just five months, whilst his 1999 effort, No Limit Top Dogg, managed just 1.1 million despite positive reviews.
It’s fair to say that Snoop has never again reached the musical heights of Doggystyle. That’s not to say the Dogg hasn’t made a case for his continued relevance – singles such as “Still A G Thing,” “Beautiful,” “Drop It Like It’s Hot” and, more recently, “Sexual Eruption” and “Wild, Young and Free” – have more than proved his worth as an enduring hip hop tastemaker. Doggystyle, however, represents the Dogg at the peak of his powers: the album is an enduring statement of West Coast values, an encapsulation of an era crafted by an all-star roster that has not since reunited.
In the years since, however, Snoop’s seriously expanded his professional purview. The gangsta rapper has endeared himself internationally, diving into both reggae and gospel music, all the while working as an actor, record executive, football coach, Wrestlemania host and WWE Hall of Fame member, porn director, roast master, cookbook author and – perhaps strangest of all – Martha Stewart offsider. Whilst other gangsta emcees such as Ice-T and Ice Cube have burst into mainstream American culture through a variety of high-profile acting gigs, none have done it as seamlessly as Snoop, who’s bounced back from a murder charge and no small amount of controversy to become America’s wholesome, pot-smoking uncle.
While accepting his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame last year, Snoop gave props to his biggest supporter: himself.
Last but not least, I want to thank me for believing in me. I want to thank me for doing all this hard work. I want to thank me for having no days off. I want to thank me for never quitting. I want to thank me for always being a giver and trying to give more than I receive. I want to thank me for trying to do more right than wrong. I want to thank me for just being me at all times. Snoop Dogg, you a bad motherfucker.”
That he is.
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