Popular rapper Snoop Dogg shared a great relationship with the late rapper Tupac Shakur.
Snoop Dogg opens up on Tupac Shakur
Snoop appeared as the latest guest on The 85 South Comedy Show, where he explained how his former Death Row labelmate taught him how to become a “star,” beginning with encouraging him to elevate his style and embrace his “pimp” persona.
“I’m still dressing like a n-gga from the hood — khakis, Chucks,” Snoop said of his post-Doggystyle wardrobe. “That n-gga like, ‘Me and you finna have a meeting… We stepping our game up. We gotta change your look, Snoop Dogg. You a pimp, n-gga. Bitches love you. You fly. You gotta start showing your fly side!
“‘I’ma get you suited up.’ ‘I’ma call this nigga Dion Scott, get your suits fitted, get your hair laid, get your nails done. Put some pimpin’ on screen, n-gga.’”
Snoop Dogg went on to admi that he initially felt uncomfortable wearing such unfamiliar clothes — which were on full display in his and 2Pac’s “2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted” video in 1996 — until he grew into his new wardrobe and understood the lesson that ‘Pac was trying to teach him.
“He dressed me up in suits, Louis Vuitton, Gucci — shit I couldn’t even spell or pronounce! All this Italian shit,” he continued. “Just look at how I’m standing next to cuh when I’m wearing it. I’m trying to figure it out! I’m like, ‘Do I look right? I hope I don’t look sweet ’cause these pants tight as a muthafucka!’
“Once I got comfortable with it, then it was like, ‘OK, this n-gga’s teaching me how to be a star.’ Like, levels and layers. ‘We know you gangsta, dawg, but can you go higher than that? What if a n-gga call you to be in a movie where they want you to be a lawyer? What if a n-gga wants you to be a detective?’”
Snoop went on to explain how 2Pac would often ask whoever was in the room to contribute a verse or play a beat, calling him “resourceful” and “a loving muthafucka in the studio.”
“[He was] not one of them n-ggas that’s in the studio like, ‘Man, get all these n-ggas outta here!’ He entertained that shit,” Snoop added. “I wasn’t a star ’til I was next to him; he showed me how to be a star. This n-gga was a star. Snoop Dogg was famous, but I didn’t know how to be a star.”
