Snoop Dogg

• 1. Introduction

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  Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr. was born on the 20th of October 1971, in Long Beach, California, to a Vietnam War veteran who walked out on the family just three months after his birth. That absence would shape everything. The boy grew up named after his stepfather, raised Baptist, singing in a choir his mother helped lead, and selling candy and delivering newspapers to get by. By sixth grade, he was rapping in school hallways with enough force that the principal assumed a fight had broken out. That young rapper from Long Beach would eventually sell over 35 million records worldwide, co-headline the Super Bowl halftime show, acquire the very label that launched his career, and carry the Olympic flame through the streets of Paris. His name is Snoop Dogg. But the path from those church pews to that Olympic torch ran through a murder charge, years of legal trouble, a reggae reinvention in Jamaica, and a sprawling empire that stretches from gospel albums to cannabis shops. How a kid who started freestyling for hallway crowds became one of the most recognizable figures on the planet is the story this documentary will tell.

• 2. Long Beach Foundations

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  Beverly Tate, Snoop Dogg's mother, was a church choir member who introduced her son to old-school R&B and is credited as one of his prime musical influences. The church was Golgotha Trinity Baptist, where the young Snoop sang and played piano from an early age. He was, by accounts of those who knew him, a dedicated student and an enthusiastic churchgoer, active in both choir and football. The contrast between that churchgoing kid and the teenager who eventually joined the Rollin' 20s Crips in the Eastside neighborhood of Long Beach is one the rapper himself has never fully resolved in public. He later denied in 1993 that he had ever formally joined a gang, even as he acknowledged the environment he moved through. With his cousins Nate Dogg and Lil' ½ Dead, and his friend Warren G, he began recording homemade tapes. The four called themselves 213, after the area code of Long Beach at that time, and recorded their first four-song demo at a local record store called VIP Records. That demo, and a solo freestyle Snoop recorded over a track by En Vogue, found its way to a cassette tape that eventually reached Dr. Dre. Dre was so struck by the freestyle that he called Snoop Dogg to audition in 1991 for his label, then known as Future Shock, which would later be renamed Death Row Records. Shortly after graduating from Long Beach Polytechnic High School in 1989, Snoop had been arrested for possession of cocaine, and the following three years saw him in and out of incarceration, including time at Wayside Jail. It was in this period, between those incarcerations, that an N.W.A affiliate known as The D.O.C. took on the role of teaching the young rapper how to structure his material: separating themes into verses, hooks, and choruses.

• 3. The Dre Years and Doggystyle

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  Warren G handed Dr. Dre the cassette tape that changed both their careers. Dre brought Snoop Dogg in first to work on the theme song for the 1992 film Deep Cover, and then enlisted him across The Chronic, his own debut solo album. That exposure, working alongside the members of Tha Dogg Pound, prepared Snoop for the moment his own debut arrived. Doggystyle was released in 1993, produced entirely by Dr. Dre, and it debuted at the top of the Billboard 200 with 806,000 copies sold in its first week. The singles "Who Am I (What's My Name)?" and "Gin and Juice" reached the top ten most-played songs in the country, and the album held its place on the Billboard charts for several months. It later received quadruple platinum certification from the RIAA. The album featured a roster of Death Row-affiliated rappers including Daz Dillinger, Kurupt, and Nate Dogg. Music journalist Chuck Philips noted at the time that Snoop seemed to show a softer side compared to harder-edged gangsta rap artists, and Rolling Stone critic Toure observed that "Snoop's vocal style is part of what distinguishes him: where many rappers scream, figuratively and literally, he speaks softly." Kool Moe Dee, who ranked Snoop at number 33 in his book There's a God on the Mic, described his delivery as having "an ultra-smooth, laidback delivery" and "flavor-filled melodic rhyming." Much of what listeners heard on Doggystyle was improvised. The D.O.C. later recalled that the track "Tha Shiznit" was entirely freestyle: Snoop came in, started performing, and Dre simply cut the machine off for the chorus and told him to come back in. In August 1993, while recording the album, Snoop Dogg was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in connection with the shooting death of a rival gang member named Philip Woldermariam. The man who pulled the trigger was actually Snoop Dogg's bodyguard, McKinley Lee. Both men were represented by Johnnie Cochran and both were acquitted on the 20th of February 1996. The case would not be formally sealed until February 2024.

• 4. Life After Death Row

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  By the time Tha Doggfather arrived in November 1996, the world Snoop Dogg had rapped about had turned lethal in the most literal sense. Tupac Shakur, his friend and labelmate, had been shot on the 7th of September 1996, in Las Vegas, dying six days later. Death Row co-founder Suge Knight faced a racketeering indictment. Dr. Dre had already left the label earlier in 1996 following a contract dispute, which meant Snoop co-produced Tha Doggfather with Daz Dillinger and DJ Pooh. The album debuted at number one but sold less than its predecessor. Its lead single, "Snoop's Upside Ya Head," featured a collaboration with Charlie Wilson, reflecting a deliberate shift toward softer territory. After his acquittal, Snoop had told people he no longer wanted to live the gangsta lifestyle, believing it would lead to assassination or prison. He found an unexpected outlet in 1997 when he performed at the Lollapalooza concert tour, an event dominated by alternative rock. Troy J. Augusto of Variety noted that Snoop's set there attracted "much dancing, and, strangely, even a small mosh pit." He signed with Master P's No Limit Records in March 1998, eventually releasing Da Game Is to Be Sold, Not to Be Told, No Limit Top Dogg (which sold over 1,510,000 copies), and Tha Last Meal (over 2,100,000 copies). His 1999 autobiography was also published during this period, also titled Tha Doggfather. The commercial peak of this middle chapter came in 2004, when "Drop It Like It's Hot" featuring Pharrell became his first single to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100. The album it came from, R&G (Rhythm and Gangsta): The Masterpiece, sold 1,730,000 copies in the United States alone. That same year, the group 213 formally reunited with Warren G and Nate Dogg to release The Hard Way, which debuted at number four on the Billboard 200.

• 5. Reinvention and the Lion

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  On the 31st of July 2012, Snoop Dogg introduced a new stage name: Snoop Lion. He told reporters he had been rechristened by a Rastafari priest in Jamaica. The reinvention was total. He announced a reggae album, Reincarnated, released in April 2013, and a documentary film of the same name, released in March 2013. He said publicly, "I have always said I was Bob Marley reincarnated." The response from the Rastafari community in Jamaica was sharp. Reggae artist Bunny Wailer, among others, criticized the conversion as a fraudulent act of cultural appropriation. Snoop dismissed the criticism, stating his beliefs were personal. In the same period, he released a compilation of electronic music under the name DJ Snoopadelic, citing the influence of George Clinton's Funkadelic. He told The Fader magazine: "Snoop Lion, Snoop Dogg, DJ Snoopadelic - they only know one thing: make music that's timeless and bangs." The religious dimension of his career did not end with Jamaica. After releasing the gospel album Bible of Love in March 2018 and performing at the 33rd Annual Stellar Gospel Music Awards, he told an interviewer that he had become a born-again Christian. He also published a cookbook in October 2018, From Crook to Cook: Platinum Recipes from Tha Boss Dogg's Kitchen, co-authored with Ryan Ford and with a foreword by Martha Stewart, containing 50 recipes. The book sold over 200,000 copies in 2020 and re-entered bestseller lists in 2022. A second cookbook, Snoop Presents Goon with the Spoon, written with E-40, followed in 2023.

• 6. Empire Builder

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  On the 10th of February 2022, Snoop Dogg announced he had acquired Death Row Records from MNRK Music Group, the label that had signed him at the very start of his career and that he had publicly feuded with when Suge Knight ran it in the 1990s. The acquisition completed a circle that took nearly three decades to close. His business ventures by that point reached far beyond music. He had invested in the cannabis delivery startup Eaze in April 2015, launched a digital media company called Merry Jane in October 2015 focused on marijuana culture, and introduced a branded line of cannabis products, Leafs by Snoop, in November 2015 - described at the time as the first mainstream celebrity cannabis brand. An app called Snoopify, released in May 2013, was generating $30,000 in weekly sales as of 2015. In October 2014, he was among the investors in a $50 million Reddit funding round that also included Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel, and Sam Altman. He co-headlined the Super Bowl LVI halftime show in February 2022 alongside Dr. Dre, Eminem, Mary J. Blige, and Kendrick Lamar, earning a Primetime Emmy Award for the performance. He has received seventeen Grammy Award nominations over his career and holds a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In July 2024, he announced he would open his first legal marijuana shop, S.W.E.D., in Los Angeles between SoFi Stadium and LAX. That same year, he was listed as one of Time Magazine's most influential people in the world. And in July 2025, he became a co-owner and investor in Welsh football club Swansea City, who play in the EFL Championship.

• 7. Beyond the Mic

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  In 2005, Snoop Dogg founded the Snoop Youth Football League for at-risk youth in Southern California. By 2018, it had grown to 50 teams and more than 1,500 players, making it the largest youth football organization in Southern California. At least 20 of his former players have gone on to play professionally in the NFL. Since 2017, the league has also run Snoop Special Stars, a division for anyone aged five or older with a physical, mental, or developmental disability. He is a certified football coach. His son Cordell, whom he coached on youth teams, played wide receiver and defensive back at Bishop Gorman High School in Las Vegas and was on the 2014 state championship team. Cordell committed to UCLA on the 4th of February 2015, but left the program that August to pursue other interests. Snoop Dogg has also been a recurring presence in professional wrestling. He appeared at WrestleMania XXIV in 2008, accompanied his cousin Sasha Banks to the ring at WrestleMania 32 in 2016, and was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame that same year. At WrestleMania 39's second night in 2023, when Shane McMahon sustained a legitimate quad injury during a match, Snoop Dogg improvised and finished the bout himself, defeating The Miz. WWE chief content officer Paul Levesque was among those who praised his quick thinking. Snoop's connection to Martha Stewart became one of the more unexpected cultural pairings of the decade. The two co-starred in the VH1 show Martha and Snoop's Potluck Dinner Party beginning in fall 2016, appeared together in a T-Mobile Super Bowl commercial in February 2017, and collaborated on a fried chicken recipe that uses barbecue-flavor potato chips in the batter. At the Paris Olympics in July 2024, Snoop served as a correspondent for NBC and Peacock, winning two Sports Emmy Awards for his hosting. On the 23rd of July 2024, he carried the Olympic flame through Saint-Denis, home to the athletes' village, as one of the final torchbearers before the opening ceremony.