Month: November 2013

Twenty years after his formal introduction Doggystyle, Snoop Dogg never considered his 1993 debut album, which has sold up to 5.5 million copies to date, a classic in-the-making. “I think it’s hard for young artists like myself to flash back and to hold on to something so great because that stuff is so hard to duplicate,” he recently told VIBE, “and I’ve never been one to wear the Doggystyle flag on my back or walk around with it because it was so unexpected. That’s why it was so great. No one expected that record to be great.” The 13-track offering (released via Suge Knight’s now-defunct Death Row Records), which boasts such street anthems as “Gin and Juice” and “Who Am I (What’s My Name)?,” initiated a streak of greatness Snoop now extends to not just music, but everything that wears a Dogg-tag. “After [Doggystyle], it was like can you do that again? and the hardest thing to do is to be great twice so what I tried to do was master greatness,” he continues. “I feel like over my career, I’ve mastered greatness so it was not about a great record. It’s about being great in any situation that I’m in or going to be in to represent me, my music, my life and my persona.” Watch him reflect on being “just a young, dusty rapper” in the full interview above.