Snoop Dogg

Sal Masekela: 22 years you've been in this game, so to speak. 30 million albums. The story is well-known, but I wanna know where it began for you.

You're still here. You're still beyond the call of relevant. But tell us a little bit about where you come from. Snoop Dogg: Well, I come from the East Side of Long Beach, Long Beach, California.

I was raised by my mother, a single parent, and she raised me on good music, having a good time. I'm a '70s baby. So in the '70s it was all about peace, love, and happiness, so I believe that that spirit is the spirit that I live by today.

You know, being a kid, just being a big, a big grown kid, and I love to have fun. I love to show love. I love music. I love art.

And I just love being creative, and my mother always kept me in the presence of people. Like, it was times in the '70s where there would be a party in the living room, and all the kids would be in the back, and they would call me in the living room to come dance, 'cause I could dance real good with the big girls. Sal Masekela: What was some of that music that your mother was playing?

Snoop Dogg: It was a song called I Ain't Gonna Bump No More with This Big Fat Woman. That was one of the songs I used to dance to the most. I ain't gonna bump no more with no big fat woman.

Sal Masekela: And growing up in school, I mean, it. You were not a rapper first. You were into music.

You sang in the choir. Yeah. You were, you were very much a child of the arts, even though, quote, unquote, you were an LBC. Snoop Dogg: Yeah. It was, brought to me at an early age at the church I went to, Golgotha Trinity Baptist Church.

My auntie and the people that at the church, they would always put together plays where we would have to act and re-enact certain heroes of yesteryear to, you know, to become who we are.

And it was through singing, acting, and just being in front of a crowd at a early age that helped me develop, you know, the confidence to where whenever I was able to speak in front of a crowd I was able to be confident at all times. Sal Masekela: And that's something that you see not just in your music, but in the way that you deal with your brand. I mean, I watch you.

You can deal with, and you do, you deal with just about anyone, which might be hard for some people to comprehend when they think initially of, like, Doggystyle, you know, 1992. How many of you bought that album? Okay. Good.

You. But you're an everyman. I like to call you black Switzerland. Snoop Dogg: It feel like that, 'cause, I mean, I can do whatever I wanna do whenever I wanna do it, and it feels good to do it.

I feel like you shouldn't be restricted. You shouldn't be put in a box. You should be who you are at all times, and I've always been a loving, happy, fun, outgoing individual.

I'm a fun guy that loves to have a fun time. Sal Masekela: Over the course of these years, you you've made many records, but a lot of, a lot of your peers who were making records at the same time as you in the early '90s, they're no longer making rap albums.

Some of them is, are still in the business, but they had to sort of shed their hip hop persona to continue to move forward. Why is it that you think you've been able to maintain your place in pop culture without really having to shed the fact that this is the Snoop D-O double G? Snoop Dogg: I think it's the way I came.