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FLASHBACK FRIDAY: Snoop Dogg, “Doggystyle”

It’s hard to know where to start beginning to explain the impact that Snoop Dogg‘s 1993 record Doggystyle has had on my life.  There had been a few other songs in the then-newly exploding genre of hip-hop that had caught my attention in my late primary school years, most memorably, Sir Mix-a-lot‘s Baby Got Back and Kriss Kross’ Jump Jump, but it was Doggystyle that really cemented my love for the genre and culture that would include my career path in photography.

I remember my younger brother handing me a tape that one of his friends had given him. At the time we’d call it a mixtape (yes, it was an actual cassette tape), just a collection of random recorded songs in no particular order – a little different to what we consider a mixtape to be today! His friend had very simply selected a few songs he liked and put them on this tape for my brother; this is often how we shared music among ourselves in the early 90s. The hard thing about this style of discovering music, is you often had no idea who the artist was. I specifically remember hearing Regulators on one of these tapes and thinking Nate Dogg was Snoop Dogg because I had misheard, and just heard “Dogg”, only to embarrassingly figure it out a few months later.

Its amazing how these tapes became the soundtrack to our lives. I can vividly remember where I was while I was listening to this tape in particular. I remember our dad driving us around on errands, and as soon as he hopped out of the car, we would quickly slot the tape in and listen to as much as we could until he came back, when we’d pop it back out. We knew he wouldn’t let us listen to this music, considering the deeply offensive content and swearing. I guess that was part of the appeal, we kind of knew we weren’t really meant to be listening to it as 12 and 14 year olds, but it made it that much more exciting.

I have made a career out of taking photos of rappers, which means that people often me why I like hip-hop so much, especially as such an outspoken feminist. The lyrical content of an album like Doggystyle is obviously disturbingly misogynistic, and as a 37-year-old I can clearly see how problematic that is. As a young teenager, I just found it amusing. Explaining what I like about these songs is sometimes difficult to put into words, but when I hear these songs I feel like they’re in my blood. There is something unexplainable; if you get it, you just get it, with every inch of your soul.

One really notable part of the album were the skits that laced the songs together, almost as legendary as the songs themselves. We used to recite them to each other – my husband and I still do to this day. “Time to get busy in this motherfucker / Like we always do about this,” has so many every day applications, for example. “We can get down to some gangster shit,” “Your bitch chose me,” “That’s what’s up” and “For those that don’t like it, each a dick” are just some of the hilarious lines that have naturally become part of an everyday rapport.

This was also my introduction to “G-Funk” or Ghetto Funk, which I learned much much later in life was a modern day adaptation of the ’70s funk like George Clinton / Parliament-Funkadelic.  What Dr Dre introduced us to on The Chronic, and continued on this album, became the sound of the West Coast that I fell in love with. All of the albums that resonated with me the most, from artists like Dre, Ice Cube, 2pac, Warren G and obviously Snoop Dogg all had this very distinguishable sound. It’s a reason I didn’t get into East Coast rap until much later in my life; it took me a long time to appreciate the difference.

One things I always loved about Doggystyle, is that first rapper you hear is a woman. Lady of Rage makes such an immediate impression on first track G-Funk (intro), which I always felt was such a bold move by Snoop. This was his debut album, and he chose the first voice you hear to be Rage. Huge. The pulsating bass line is infectious, it immediately gets your head bopping along, all the while introducing that young teenager to the concept of Doggystyle, “We do it from the back, how else can you get to booty”!

Another really distinct memory of this album for me is wanting to learn the words to Who Am I (What’s my name?) We had started to see the video clip on Rage, and I desperately wanted to be able to rap along to it word for word, so I did what you would do back in those days. Play a part of the song, pause the tape, write down the words. Rewind, Listen again. Over and over until you wrote down all the lyrics to the song. Years later you would realise you sometimes got some of the lyrics wrong, or there was that part you could never quite figure out.

Lodi Dodi was always a favourite of mine on this album. It wasn’t until many years later that I learned about the original Slick Rick song, even though he did mention, “I gotta to say what up to Slick Rick” on the track – it’s the kind of thing a 14-year-old wouldn’t always take in. His bouncy rapping style, right on the beat, has always been my favourite, and is a lot of why why I also love West Coast rap so much. Easy listening, right in the pocket.

My all time favourite song is Ain’t No Fun (If The Homies Can’t Have None), which also might be the most misogynistic song of all time. Still, it’s amazing – if I don’t think about what the lyrics are actually saying. I’ve been known to get up at hip-hop karaoke or stand on tables at parties and rap this song, Nate Dogg’s beautiful voice at the start, crooning about how he’s never met a girl that he loved in the whole world, and Kurupt’s line “If Kurupt gave a fuck about a bitch, I’d always be broke.” If someone put out a song like this these days it absolutely wouldn’t fly with me, but let me bask in my hypocritical glory, because this song is awesome.

Also disturbing, when you listen as an adult, are the themes of Murder was the Case and Serial Killer which includes selling your soul to the devil, killing people with shivs in prison, choosing one of six million ways to die and the reality of gang banging in the hood. Interestingly enough, as a teenager I was so interested in the ‘gang’ way of life, as it was so far removed from my totally privileged, safe, country girl upbringing. I have no idea where this interest came from, but I would pore over gang-related movies and books to learn more about this lifestyle that almost seemed like a fantasy.

I read recently that Snoop Dogg has never listened to this album from start to finish. He’s obviously heard all of the songs, but not in the order of the album. How incredible is that? I think part of the beauty of this album is how the songs flow into each other, the skits blend into the next song so effortlessly. Regardless, I want to thank Snoop (and Dr Dre) for this incredible album, that has shaped my whole life and passion for hip-hop. It’s the single most influential album that I still can listen to today, without ever getting sick of it. Actually, I’m going to listen to it right now.