Long Beach’s own Snoop Dogg is legendary for his laid-back yet biting flow, which makes any music he puts out or guests on ooze with languid cool. Snoop has always brought the badass without the belligerence, the hype without the hurry, allowing his words and vibe to glide and shine on record and on stage in a way that seems effortless yet fully expressed. This, coupled with his smooth persona and style, has made him one of the most iconic figures in hip-hop, a steady and seductive voice in a sea of bodaciousness that’s remained relevant for over three decades. But there’s one thing the D-O-Double GG has never, ever been chill about: his brand. Fo shizzle (we had to use it once!), Snoop Dogg, whose real name is Calvin Broadus, might be the busiest, most influential – and inspirational – hip hop mogul out there, with so many grassroots endeavors, companies big and small, high-profile collabs, diverse endorsements and novel ideas under his belt, it’s almost impossible to keep track, especially lately.
In the past few years alone, Snoop and his “Boss Lady” wife Shante Broadus – mother of his kids Corde, Cordell and Cori – have launched The Broadus Collection (a line of silk headscarves), Broadus Foods breakfast products (Snoop Loopz cereal and Mama Snoop pancakes), a TV show “Doggyland – Kids Songs and Nursery Rhymes,” and opened a store in December of 2020: Snoop Dogg’s Clothing (Snoopy’s Clothing on Instagram), just down the street from the Forum, home of his beloved Lakers and across the street from SoFi stadium, the new base for the L.A. Rams. After playing what many felt was the proudest Los Angeles music set ever at this year’s SuperBowl at SoFi, his legacy was cemented in a new way, even garnering an Emmy. If he wasn’t iconic already, he sure was after doing his “crip walk” alongside Dr. Dre, Enimem, 50 Cent and Mary J. Blige, clad in that snazzy blue and gold bandanna-print sweat suit (the actual get-up is on display at his store, and various versions of it are available for purchase).
Everything Snoop touches turns to gold. (Courtesy 19 Crimes)
Snoop and his fam also bought Death Row Records – the label where his music first took off – this year, and they did it not too long after he announced an executive role at Def Jam Records as an artist mentor and investor. Both labels’ merch are represented in his store alongside stuff emblazoned with Snoop’s likeness, Doggystyle album art and his Dr. Bombay cartoon character. He’s constantly releasing new designs on clothing and home goods, available at the Inglewood store and online at Snoopermarket.com.
And then there’s NFTs. With help from his son Cordell, Snoop was an early adopter of web3 images via their Bored Ape non-fungible token designs including Bombay (Snoop) and Champ Medici (Cordell). Singapore’s Golden Equator Group just teamed up with the Broadus’s for a web3 fund dubbed “Welcome To The Block (WTTB),” which aims to raise $40-$50 million to invest in early-stage businesses in the blockchain. Cordell was introduced to crypto by the late Nipsey Hussle in 2017, and he got his dad into it soon after, debuting his first NFT collection on Crypto.com. It was a huge hit and kickstarted Snoop’s digital presence – he’s currently developing the “Snoopverse,” a virtual world on The Sandbox metaverse platform with his son’s help.
Death Row chic (Lina Lecaro)
Cordell likens the NFT scene to “the birth of hip hop – everybody with each other and just freestyling and making beats, and everything was just fun and new,” so it makes sense for his dad to have a big presence. The pair are also working with Sotheby’s auction house around NFTs for Death Row, hoping to make it “the first NFT music label in the metaverse.” Snoop and Shante’s vision for Death Row branding continues to grow in other ways too, such as 19 Crimes, his wine line, which just released a collab with his homegirl Martha Stewart and announced an upcoming Death Row flavor and label. He and Martha also worked together on a Bic lighters campaign this year.
“Ice-T once told me Snoop is the one who showed him it could be done. Now we see Mr. “Cop Killer” himself doing commercials for Cheerios and Tide,” observes hip-hop journalist Kyle Justice. “I think that’s part of the appeal. Snoop Dogg is a quintessential “American Dream” success story. He came from nothing and evolved into one of the most famous faces in the world. Snoop will be remembered not only for his inimitable voice on songs such as Dr. Dre’s “Nuthin’ But A ‘G’ Thang” and the Doggstyle album but also for his willingness to think outside of the box. We won’t forget seeing him in a Dunkin’ Donuts commercial, eating Tostitos with Martha Stewart or riding around with a cartoon general for General Insurance. He’s Snoop. He does what he wants and will continue to pop up in the most unexpected places, meanwhile showing the next generation anything is possible. “
Snoop’s Super Bowl outfit at the Snoop Dogg store (Lina Lecaro)
We first met Snoop at an Adidas Coachella party, held at the Frank Sinatra Estate in Palm Springs, back in 2012. It was the night before his famous headlining set with Dr. Dre at the festival, the one that brought us the Tupac hologram. He was shockingly mellow heading into what would be one of the biggest historical pop culture moments of all time, but the joints he was smoking probably had something to do with it. We should probably add here that Snoop’s celebration and normalization of cannabis has been one of the most significant forms of activism in entertainment, and it surely helped the movement toward legalization.
Getting an actual interview with the man has been on our bucket list ever since we had that brief meeting. We’ve come close a few times, when he was promoting his gig as host of a new The Joker’s Wild game show, for example, but it never came to fruition. We finally got the opportunity at the launch party for the scarf line last month, held at the Broadus family’s salon Chateau Beauty Bar in Santa Monica. We got a few scoops from Snoop that night too, one of which just became public just last week: a Snoop Dogg biopic to be written by Wakanda Forever’s Joe Robert Cole and released by Universal Pictures, is currently in the works. When we ask who might play him, Snoop reveals, “I don’t know, it’s my life story… we gonna have to do a casting call,” getting closer to our phone mic and adding, “He’s out there, though. I know you’re out there little homie!”
The biopic comes on the heels of another big announcement last week: he just signed with William Morris Endeavor for representation in all areas of his career. “WME is the only place that can handle the career I’ve built and grow it even further,” Snoop said in a press statement. “I look forward to gettin’ it with the WME team to continue innovating across music, film, TV, business, and digital and break barriers across entertainment.”
The Broadus’s: Cordell, Cori, Shante and Corde (Courtesy Boss Lady Entertainment)
Snoop’s no stranger to Hollywood of course. He’s been in several films and TV shows over the years, and we just saw him in the Netflix Jaime Foxx vehicle, Day Shift, earlier this year. Before that, he hosted “Snoop Dogg’s ‘F*cn Around’ Comedy Special” as part of the Netflix is a Joke festival in L.A. We’ll see him next as a star and producer in the MGM’s comedy The Underdoggs, due out this time next year in conjunction with his Death Row Pictures banner. It tells the story of a former NFL superstar who, after a run in with the law, agrees to coach a youth football team in lieu of prison. Drumline‘s Charles Stone is directing with the screenplay is being written by scribes from Grown-ish and #BlackAF.
The story is inspired by Snoop’s own work in youth sports. He started a youth football team in 2005, and just announced a basketball league based in the LBC this year. And there’s even more on his plate: if you watch sports on TV you’ve surely seen him as the new face of Corona beer (he jokes their new slim cans should be “Snoop cans”); Funko figures in his likeness are about to drop hot very soon; and a Sketchers collab is in the works (as hinted in his IG recently). There’s surely more to come, too, as the Broadus empire continues to explode.
He’s the star, but she’s the boss (Courtesy Boss Lady Entertainment)
As his once-wild gangsta life has settled and his entrepreneurial hustle continues to get honed and elevated, the one thing King Snoop emphasizes most when we finally get to chat is his Queen, whom he officially announced as his manager last year. The long time love he and high school sweetheart Shante share has had its challenges over their 23 years of marriage – they even separated and talked divorce at one time – but their relationship has not only endured, it’s more solid than ever. He insists she is why he is where he is today, and it’s downright heart-warming to hear him talk about his woman and their family.
“She’s the backbone to the man,” Snoop shares with us as he gives his wife a squeeze. “I can’t do what I do unless I have stability and I have somebody who understands and gives me the room to be creative. Like, this is my wife and my friend. She’s allowed me to become Snoop Dogg and become the businessman I am, to be able to stretch out into the things that I do, without complaining. Holding my family down despite all the shit I did that was fucked up in the past. She remained solid and was there for me. So it’s only right that I say she is the backbone, not just by the side of me, but the backbone.”
The grounding influence of family inspires most of Snoop’s business decisions as of late. He sees the foods brands in particular, which he got into thanks to his pal Master P, as “something that will be here generation after generation, something that inspires my kids and my wife and my grandkids to continue to keep this legacy alive, and celebrate this family – The Broadus family,” adding a little louder, “Broadus, Broadus!… we want the name to live on and on and on.”
(Courtesy Broadus Collection)
According to the couple, familial love and struggle was the catalyst for the headscarf business. Snoop and Shante’s daughter Cori was diagnosed with Lupus at 6 years old, and when she began to lose her hair because of it, she wore scarves often. In solidarity, the whole Broadus family sported scarves along with her. Snoop has rocked locks, braids and an array of headwear over the years, and with his son and daughter opening the hair salon last year, the foray into head fashion was the next logical step. It’s one more thing that strengthens the Broadus business bond.
“The whole mission was inspired by my daughter, but we wear scarves all the time,” Snoop says. “We wanted to make something that was symbolic to us that we could wear. Not just sell, but be able to say I’m wearing some shit that’s cool and fly and meaningful.”
So what’s Snoop Dogg like as a dad you might wonder? “I mean, he was a cool dad,” Cori tells us via Zoom after the party. “We had our rules, we had our boundaries, we had consequences. And I always say, we grew up like regular kids, we just had the finer things in life. We still had our punishments, we still got our phones taken away… you know what I mean? I have a summer birthday, but if I had D’s or F’s, guess what? You done for summer. Consequences and discipline is everything, because that’s how you become grateful and appreciative of things that others may not have.”
(Courtesy Broadus Collection)
Cori admits that living in Snoop dad’s shadow wasn’t always easy in terms of finding her professional path, but she is driven to prove herself on her own terms right now. “My mindset is always okay, how can I be successful in my own way? My dad is successful in his way. We’re all successful in our own way. So I think, instead of trying to be just like him, and do exactly what he did, I try it my way,” she shares. “One thing he always told me was, ‘you got to be your own luck. I can’t be your luck.’ So I think you just got to work, work, work. You can’t expect nothing to come without putting work into it. And that’s what I learned growing up.”
In addition to being an aspiring singer, Cori has a makeup line called Choc Factory, and runs the salon with her brother. She also works on the social media pages for the Broadus Collection and the salon as well as her own brand. She’s always been into lip products and lip care so that’s her line’s focus, and it’s all marketed from the perspective of self-love, body acceptance and inclusion. Her message is uplifting and of course, much needed in the beauty industry.
Seeing her dad’s success and her mother helming it all, has got to be inspiring too. Shante founded Boss Lady Entertainment (BLE) a few years ago, but her workload is busier than ever. In addition to managing her husband’s music career and brand, she’s working on a memoir offering advice to enterprising women focused on the value of family. She also supervises the Compound, the family events space in Inglewood, which features music recording and studios, plus a basketball court and a room full of collectable cars (we got to see it firsthand at Snoop’s last listening event). The official announcement for Boss Lady’s latest role states that she’ll also “cultivate and fortify all upcoming partnership deals across the cannabis, spirits, gaming, music, brand partnerships, touring, licensing and TV/film space” and “oversee the media arm of Snoop Dogg’s empire, diGGital doGG – home to exclusive mobile apps, video games and a proprietary animation pipeline.”
(Courtesy Boss Lady Entertainment)
Zooming with Shante a couple weeks after meeting her, she reflects on her long relationship with her husband and how he always had something special that brands wanted to tap into. “You know, Snoop was hot when he first came out. A lot of people wanted to work with him,” she shares. “I remember Carl from Cross Colors used to send so much stuff to us for Snoop to brand and he started paying him to wear his stuff. And I remember the Saint Ides beer brand started working with Snoop to brand rep. Tommy Hilfiger was another one. In the early days, they all came for Snoop to represent their stuff. And we thought, why don’t we just start branding Snoop himself? That’s when we came out with the Snoop Dogg clothing.”
According to manager KaNisha Williams, the Inglewood store is the place to get all of the latest designs from the family’s various companies, presented in an “elevated boutique” atmosphere. We could definitely see this inviting, well-curated and organized shop on Robertson Blvd or Fairfax Ave., but it feels special right where it is for obvious reasons. Prices range from $6 for branded potato chips to over a grand for a limited edition sweatsuit. Williams says they drop new items every weekend and there are often lines outside when they do. New items coming are shared on the store’s IG, and often, Snoop himself tweets new products. Unique Christmas-themed items are on the way in the next few weeks. Last year’s “Merry Crip-mas” sweaters sold out immediately. Surprisingly to many, the store does not sell weed or any paraphernalia.
It’s Snoop Dogg’s world, we just live in it. (Lina Lecaro)
While many in the media focus on Snoop’s cannabis consumption and he was one of the first to tout delivery services and the merits of daily smoking, Shante says they are stepping back right now with their weed brands, likely due to the industry’s current challenges. “We were in the business really deep,” she explains. “We’re pausing it right now, but it’ll be back soon.”
Like another marketing-savvy family – The Kardashians – the Broadus’ realized early that they could endorse other people’s products (for the right price) and their own, too. Also, like Kim K and co., Snoop realized the power of social media early on. He is actually credited by the creators of Instagram as one of the first music figures to highlight the platform, helping make it the powerhouse forum it is today.
As other hip-hop moguls make moves high (Dre, Jay-Z) and low (Ye), Snoop remains a solid and aspirational Black business force who somehow keeps his vibe more accessible, his humor and current family man guise leading the way. His focus on the L.A. community where he came from is a big part of it too. The Doggfather is obviously very proud of his local legacy and how his kids are continuing to make it grow. “They didn’t get handed a green card that said ‘here, you in the game automatically,’ they had to do it on their own for a while,” Snoop tells us. “It’s fun watching them go through the struggle in the business and then put product in the business. Now I can just sit back and just watch and enjoy it.”
(Courtesy Mount Westmore)
But he’s not sitting for too long. It all began with the music and the rap superstar, thankfully, shows no sign of slowing down in that arena, even with so many projects and plans to keep him busy. Dogg has continued to release new music consistently the past few years and a huge new collaboration was just announced last week: the West Coast’s very own supergroup, Mount Westmore – featuring Snoop, Ice Cube, E-40, and Too $hort. They just dropped their first official single, “Too Big,” a few weeks ago and will release their new album on December 9.
L.A. fans can also see Snoop share a bill with Megan Thee Stallion on Dec. 10 at the LA3C Festival (a two-day music, art and food festival celebrating “the rich culture and immense creativity of Los Angeles” at Los Angeles Historic State Park). And with the holidays in full swing, he’ll also be out there celebrating like only he can with a “Holidaze of Blaze” tour featuring guests T-Pain, Warren G and the Ying Yang Twins on select dates. Oh, and if you’re looking for unique Christmas gifts, his store has got you covered, with new drops every weekend. We’re on the waiting list for “Snoop on a Stoop,” his version of Elf on a Shelf that sold out immediately after he posted a photo on IG. For Snoop and his brood, it’s a wonderful life indeed.
This week’s LA Weekly print cover story.
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