Welcome to the Dogg House

A slightly different version of this article appears in the March 2003 issue of SPIN, available at newsstands now. It's the "The Next Big Things Issue," with lots of good stories (including a cover story on Dashboard Confessional), so be sure to pick one up.

The two-story tract house at the end of the cul-de-sac in Diamond Bar, California, looks just like all the other houses on this middle-class suburban block. A small patch of lawn out front. An SUV parked at the curb. A bodyguard sitting inside that SUV, warily surveying the street. A head peaking through the curtains of a ground-floor window to note the arrival of some unexpected visitors.

OK, so maybe this house isn't exactly like all others on the block...

Wlcome to "Tha Chuuuch." This is where Snoop Dogg hangs out when he's not enjoying the good life at his primary residence, a mansion in a much tonier Diamond Bar neighborhood. That place has panoramic views and its own full-size basketball court out back. Tha Chuuuch, on the other hand, is strictly utilitarian. Its not-quite-ready-for-Cribs décor is best described as Contemporary Frathouse. Downstairs, there's forest-green carpeting, sports posters on the walls, a vending machine that dispenses sodas for $1, and a multi-level cat tree for the house's only full-time resident, a small white feline named Frank Sinatra. Upstairs, the bedrooms have been converted into recording studios.

This is where Snoop is holding court now, accompanied by another rapper named Daddy V, an engineer who's working on some new tracks, his record company publicist, a bodyguard or two, and a few other indeterminate members of his entourage. "Fuck the Muppets," he says, leaning back in his chair as Frank Sinatra sidles up to him. Snoops's wearing a baby blue velour warm-up jacket, matching sneakers, and most impressively, a t-shirt with a large photograph of his own face on it. His trademark braids poke out from beneath a black skullcap.

"I didn't ask them to be in the Muppets, they asked me," he continues. "Got me to fly to Vancouver, Canada - my first time flying since 9/11. I wanted to do something for the kids, you know what I'm saying?" A few days earlier, the Jim Henson Company announced that it was removing Snoop Dogg's scene from its upcoming Muppets Christmas special on NBC. The official explanation: the special was running too long. The likelier story: civil rights activist Najee Ali and Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly cowed the Muppet people into de-Snoopifying the movie.

"Snoop Dogg is a ganster rapper who has appeared in porno videos," exclaims Ali, himself a former gang-member who now heads an organization called Project Islamic H.O.P.E. "He has been an advocate of drugs and alcohol use as well as music whose lyrics glorify gang violence and misogyny. We don't feel an entertainer of that type is fit to be watched by children."

"Why do people even worry about what I do?" Snoop counters. "It's not one person who makes the decision on who I'm supposed to be or how I'm supposed to act. The public chooses. And that shit I did [with Kermit the Frog] was fly. But it don't hurt my feelings that they cut it out," he says. "I'm a businessman."

And, indeed, evidence of the Doggfather's various ventures is visible throughout the room. One of Snoop's recording engineers wears a sweatshirt emblazoned with the logo of his apparel company, Snoop Dogg Clothing. On the walls, there are photos of LaToiya Williams and Mr. Kane, two of the artists signed to Snoop's record label, Doggystyle Records. Amid a stack of videos, there's a copy of the "Girls Gone Wild" episode that Snoop Dogg hosted. On a keyboard in the corner, there are action figures from the Rocky Horror Picture Show, made by Vital Toys, the same company that is developing a vast array of Snoop-related action figures.

And, of course, this is the room where many of the tracks on Snoop's 6th and latest album, "Paid Tha Cost To Be Da Bo$$," originated, and where Snoop records Bigg Snoop Dogg Radio, a weekly, four-hour mix of music and interviews that currently airs on 35 stations around the world. "We're having James Brown come in tomorrow for that," Snoop says.

Also on tomorrow's schedule is a meeting with the people behind an upcoming movie version of Starsky and Hutch. "The director and the writer want me to play the role [of Huggy Bear], but the studio don't believe I'm strong enough to do it," he explains "It's just a matter of proving myself, going down there and doing what I gotta do."

***

Wop bop a loo bop. Gabba gabba hey. Bow wow wow yippy yo yippy yay. Sometimes, you don't really have to say anything to say everything. By 1992, the gangsta and the player were already well-established hip-hop archetypes - but while Snoop drew heavily upon them for his own persona, he added something else too, the stoned affability of another SoCal icon, Jeff Spicoli. The result? Multi-platinum cross-over success. His gang affiliations and ghetto style made him menacing and authentic - but he was also named after a cartoon character. He drank gin, but also juice. And then of course there was his innovative vocal style - cool and dangerous, but playful too, like Iceberg Slim with a hint of Dr. Seuss.

In the more than ten years since producer Dr. Dre unleashed him on the world with the single "Deep Cover," Snoop Dogg has stretched his appeal as far as possible. And while he's lost a step or two as a hip-hop trailblazer (his first album, Doggystyle, remains his best-seller), his currency as a pop icon has never waned: he's the most marketable middle-class ganster this side of Tony Soprano. "He is so overwhelmingly popular," says Joe Francis, the creator of the "Girls Gone Wild" tapes. "He crosses racial boundaries. He crosses age boundaries. You can't walk through a hotel lobby without there being hundreds of people lined up to see him."

Thanks to such wide-ranging appeal, and to his entrepreneurial bent, Snoop Dogg may have been the world's most industrious stoner over the last ten years. During that time, Snoop released six solo albums (seven if you include the one Suge Knight put out without his consent), and two with the group Tha Eastsidaz. He's also performed on dozens of other artists' tracks, and started his own record label. He wrote (or at least dictacted) an autobiography, Tha Doggfather. ("Is that any good?" he cracks. "I haven't read it yet.") He's appeared in dozens of TV shows, documentaries, and feature films. In his first starring role in the underrated "Bones," he played an angry ghost pimp with a sinister elegance reminiscent of Vincent Price; if the movie's script had been as sharp as Snoop's wardrobe, a sequel would be in the works right now. Snoop was also compelling as a crippled hustler in "Training Day" and a sullen ex-con in "Baby Boy," but he's hoping to land bigger roles in the future. "I'd like to do the Miles Davis story," he says. "And the Bob Marley story, and Dr. J. You know, real stories, with deep roles where I can really show my skills."

His clothing line is carried by Macy's and other retail chains. He helped design a shoe model for Dada Footwear called the Thizzle. He recently completed a pilot for MTV called Doggy Fizzle Televizzle, which features a combination of comedy sketches and real-life segments, like Snoop practicing with the Oakland Raiders. He hosted the "Girls Gone Wild" video, drinking Moet White Star and orange juice from a rhinestone-studded goblet as young women celebrated Mardi Gras by showing him their breasts. "Girls love him. Guys love him. He's perfect for our brand," exclaims Joe Francis. Larry Flynt apparently thinks the same. Snoop has produced two X-rated videos in partnership with Hustler Video. "Diary of a Pimp, that's the new one," he says. "That's my best porn movie thus far."

In these days of hip-hop moguldom, of course, you haven't really made it until you're generating hundreds of millions of dollars a year in revenue and branching out into restaurant chains and advertising firms. So far, brand Snoop has yet to reach the level of P. Diddy's Bad Boy empire or other hip-hop conglomerates like Roc-a-fella Enterprises, Rush Communications, or No Limit Enterprises, but an increasing number of business partners are eager to help him try.

But while Snoop's wide-ranging appeal is what makes him such an attractive commodity, it's also what makes him controversial. "He crossed the line when he went into porno," says Najee Ali, whose Project Islamic H.O.P.E. organization has also protested Snoop Dogg's radio show as well as his involvement in the Muppet movie. "Young kids know who Snoop is," he exclaims. "And for young kids to see him as part of the mainstream, when he's doing porno movies and things like that, that's damaging."

"Snoop's a father. He has three kids," counters Sid Richlin, owner of Vital Toys, the company that could ultimately turn Snoop into a force to rival the Muppets. "He coaches his kid's football team. He gives back to his community - we're doing a project together where we're giving toys to kids for Christmas. When he's out in public, he'll stop and talk with you. He'll take a picture with you. You can hug him, he'll sign anything."

And if all goes according to plan, there will be more and more things to sign. Already, Vital produces two Snoop Dogg action figures, but Richlin has much bigger plans. "We're bringing out figures of other people he's involved with - Bootsy Collins, George Clinton. We're also working on a line of figures where we put Snoop in different situations - Snoop in reggae style, with dreadlocks, to give props to Bob Marley. Snoop dressed in an old-school basketball outfit, as an ode to Dr. J. And we're developing a cartoon together, for TV, that uses the dog character that has appeared on his album covers since day one. It's going to be for kids, with great stories that will ultimately have great messages. I say this lightly, but this is the dog of the new millenium. First, there was Snoopy, and now there's gonna be Snoop Dogg."

What does the dog of the new millenium say about all this? "People say be positive, be a role model, but sometimes you just have to be real because the kids are going to make their own decisions and their own choices," Snoop Dogg exclaims. You could call that a convenient way of thinking, of course, but also an honest one. Besides, does anyone actually believe a man who preaches virtue without ever having tasted sin?

***

Anyone who visits "tha chuuch" must observe the following rules, which appear on laser-printed signs posted in strategic places around the room:

"If you are here to holla at Dogg about money, doing bad, or personal problems in general, go home! He's working! No exceptions! --Bigg Snoop Dogg."

"No consumption of alcohol or smoking of any kind at chuuch. No exceptions!" --Bigg Snoop Dogg."

At the moment, the strongest spirits in the room are three cans of soda, procured from the vending machine downstairs. A couple months earlier, Snoop announced that he had given up the sweet leaf, a decision that must have had eyelids flying at half-mast at High Times magazine, which had recently honored him as "Stoner of the Year."

"I was actually abusing drugs," Snoop says. "So I just wanted to step back and take a different look at life, you know? And if I choose to get high, it's because I want to get high. It's no longer gonna be me abusing drugs, smoking three or four thousand dollars worth of weed a day, doing crazy shit."

Despite his new weed-free status, there are no odes to the joys of sobriety on "Paid Tha Cost to Be Da Bo$$." Nor are there any trigger-happy tales about the violent realities of the action-figure merchandising game. Maybe all that comes on the next album. Instead, what most characterizes this one is Snoop Dogg's desire to establish himself as his own boss. "This is like my step-out, standout project, where I really did it all on my own as far as driving the car," Snoop says. In the past, there was always at least one other powerful figure - Dr. Dre, Suge Knight, Master P - with a hand in the development of Snoop's albums. But this time, no such shadow looms. "I picked all the producers. I put it all together."

The results: some familiar sounds and also some unexpected moments. "Batman and Robin" is built around the surf-tinged theme song from the '60s TV incarnation of the Caped Crusader. It's both an irresistibly catchy track and a pretty good idea for the next WB superhero makeover: Snoop Dogg as a millionaire playboy crimefighter, suited and booted and patrolling Gotham West from behind the wheel of his customized Snoop Deville. "From tha Chuuuch to da Palace," produced by the Neptunes, pairs Snoop's laid-back vocals with a choppy, futuristic riff that comes from an entirely different galaxy than West Coast G-funk.

And then there's the album's final track, "Pimp't Slapped," Snoop's blunt condemnation of his former Death Row colleague, Suge Knight. Ever since No Limit purchased Snoop's contract from Death Row in 1998, Snoop and Knight have been feuding, with Snoop charging that Knight hadn't paid him what he'd deserved while under contract at Death Row and Knight claiming that he spent millions on Snoop's legal fees during his murder trial. While "Pimp't Slapped" doesn't say anything more than Snoop's prvious dis tracks of Knight (see 2000's bootleg "Death Row is Bitches"), this is the first time he's released such sentiments officially.

Knight, in turn, has responded by dissing Snoop on The Howard Stern Show and other venues, including Nick Broomfield's documentary Biggie and Tupac. But Snoop seems unfazed by it all, as if such feuding has been going on for so long that it's just another part of his complicated life: he's got one Thizzle firmly planted in the mainstream, and one Thizzle that may never leave the streets.

It's a difficult, delicate balancing act, though, and it has its costs. High in the corner of the room, a wall-mounted video monitor projects scenes from the multiple security cameras stationed around "tha Chuuch." Outside in the driveway, three members of Snoop's security team keep watch in the darkness. And they're not there because of the Muppets or Bill O'Reilly.

Still, Snoop has a new record to promote, and new deals to ponder, so eventually talk drifts away from Knight and back to business. "I've been talking with Mad TV, but before we say yes to them, I want to talk to Saturday Night Live," says Snoop's publicist.

"If I do Mad TV, I can't do SNL?"

"It not that you can't do both, but they're competitors. They air at the same time."

"It's kind of like Crips and Bloods," theorizes Daddy V.

"Actually, it kind of is," says the publicist.

"Mad TV is funny as shit," Snoop concludes. "I love that show."

"Well, we can probably get you on both," the publicist suggests. "It's just a matter of working it right."