Snoop Dogg Remembers Dionne Warwick Approaching Him About Misogynistic Lyrics
Snoop Dogg may have been one of gangsta rap’s kingpins during the 90s, but when it came to musical OGs at the time, even he had to step back and center at times.
The Long Beach native and hip-hop legend was featured in the new CNN film Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over and recalled a time when he and Dionne Warwick set up a meeting with a group of prominent rappers of the era after the “Heartbreaker” singer decided she was fed up with the misogynistic lyrics that were heavily prevalent in 1990s rap lyrics.
Tha Doggfather described how he and Death Row Records label boss Suge Knight were invited to arrive at the legendary singer’s home no later than 7 a.m., which he says they were so nervous about they pulled up even earlier.
“We were kind of, like, scared and shook up,” Snoop said. “We’re powerful right now, but she’s been powerful forever. Thirty-some years in the game, in the big home with a lot of money and success.”
The rappers were confronted by Warwick after they arrived, according to Snoop, who demanded they call her a “b***h” to her face. The curse had and has been used in rap lyrics since the emergence of commercial hip-hop during the late 1980s.
“These kids are expressing themselves, which they’re entitled to do,” Warwick recalled thinking at the time in the documentary. “However, there’s a way to do it.”
“You guys are all going to grow up,” she told the group, according to the singer. “You’re going have families. You’re going to have children. You’re going to have little girls, and one day that little girl is going to look at you and say, ‘Daddy, did you really say that? Is that really you?’ What are you going to say?”
“She was checking me at a time when I thought we couldn’t be checked,” added Snoop, who went on to welcome a daughter and three sons in the coming years. “We were the most gangsta as you could be, but that day at Dionne Warwick’s house, I believe we got out-gangstered that day.”
Snoop added that the experience made him change his lyrics moving forward, which began with his sophomore 1996 album Tha Doggfather.
“I made it a point to put records of joy – me uplifting everybody and nobody dying and everybody living,” he recalled. “Dionne, I hope I became the jewel that you saw when I was the little, dirty rock that was in your house. I hope I’m making you proud.”