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Nov. 8, 1996 -- Death Row's biggest living star, Snoop Dogg, who weathered his own murder trial earlier this year, will finally release his second album this coming Tuesday. It's called "Tha Doggfather." It's dedicated to Tupac, and it bears no creative trace of Snoop's departed mentor, Dr. Dre. John Norris went directly to the Dogg House to get the story.
SNOOP DOGG: It's a happy album, it's a colorful album. It's happy. People probably think that I would be mad or writing songs about "Fuck the Police" or "Fuck the Judge" and "I'm tired of going to court," but it's an album of colorful songs and happiness and brighter days, just like what the future should be like if we could all just come together and make it happen.
MTV: Years don't get much more emotionally trying than the one Snoop Dogg has just gone through. Surviving a murder trial, splitting with his former partner and producer, Dr. Dre, watching his friend and fellow rapper Tupac Shakur die from gunshot wounds, and now, seeing the head of his label, Suge Knight, go to jail. But Snoop told us the tough times of '96 have only made him want to come back stronger.
SNOOP: When I first started doing "Tha Doggfather," I thought it would be more of a Mafioso type of violin, strings, and orchestra and that type of album, but it started that way and slipped away from that and it started going to the old school funk, and my roots.
MTV: Besides tributes to the heavily sampled Gap Band and rap icons Run DMC, Snoop also decided to cover a less obvious influence.
SNOOP: "The Vapors," the one we did from Biz Markie... old song. It's just so crazy the way his rap fit my rap and his lifestyle fit my lifestyle with the same similarities.
MTV: With Snoop taking charge of his own musical development, his emotional development was hastened by the tragedy of Tupac's murder.
SNOOP: It's just touchy, you know what I'm saying, it's touchy, I dedicated my album to him because I felt just keeping the Death Row thing alive was what was so important to him because he believed so much in Death Row, from the beginning of the game that's all he believed in, because we believed in him and we was the first real people to actually get his back and support and give him what he deserved as far as this rap game was concerned. I tell everybody on the label and everybody around the label that my album and Nate Dogg's album are gonna determine the future of Death Row Records because these are the first albums where we completely didn't have Dre touch 'em at all. So from here on out, if people love these albums and respect us, we know we can do it and they know we can do it and we on from there.
Personnel: Snoop Doggy Dogg, Dat Nigga Daz, Kurupt The Kingpin, Too Short, Warren G, Technique, Tray Dee, L.B.C. Crew, Teena Marie, Charlie Wilson, Nate Dogg, Darrell Crooks, Raphael Saadiq (guitar); Priest "Soopafly" Brooks. Producers include: Snoop Doggy Dogg, DJ Pooh, Dat Nigga Daz, LT, Priest "Soopafly" Brooks, Sam Sneed, Arkim, Flair. Engineers include: Dave Arron, Rick Freeman. Although he still sips gin & juice, Snoop Doggy Dogg shows a more conservative style in his lyrics on this follow-up to the popular and controversial DOGGYSTYLE. He has a lot more positivity to express, and a lot less to say about G's and ho's. Otherwise it's the same ol' Snoop, representing the same G-funk that made him the West Coast's most popular rapper, even though his original producer, Dr. Dre, is nowhere to be seen. Once again, he pays tribute to old-school hip-hop, this time with a remake of Biz Markie's "Vapors." THA DOGGFATHER comes at a time when it is most needed. After Tupac Shakur's death and Dr. Dre's departure from Death Row Records, hip-hop's most successful label has been left with one man to carry on its legacy, and that man is THA DOGGFATHER. With one of the most distinct flows in rap, he returns to the forefront of hip-hop to quiet all the rumors that Death Row is a falling empire.
