Original subtitles

(woman) Now that you have Death Row Records,

how are you gonna go about your business differently?

Death Row's gonna be the biggest record company there is.

"The Chronic" album is the foundation.

We're gonna have the best artists.

Dr. Dre... "Dogg Pound Gangstaz."

We have the best production, as far as I'm concerned.

Whoo... yeah, that's it, right there.

And the best lyricist.

Who's that you're referring to?

(crowd cheering)

♪♪

♪♪

(woman) Your parents called you Snoop or was it...

Yeah, they used to call me Snoopy or just Snoop.

'Cause my first name is crazy

but I ain't gon' get into that right now.

So, they just call me that.

As a boy, nobody called him Cordozar.

Nobody started calling him Calvin

until he caught the murder case.

Snoopy is what I've always known him as.

I know Snoopy. (chuckling)

I'll take you back to the early '80.

Over there in, uh, Long Beach, California,

two little thin guys playing Pop Warner Football.

This little thin kid sitting next to me on the poly bench.

I knew something was special about that guy because

he had a way of putting his words together.

(man) Snoop and I go back to Locust Street

in the early '80s.

Locust Street was a mix of break dancing,

pop locking, freestyling or rapping.

Snoop used to do these little rhymes.

And they were a way of starting off a joke about you.

And those taught us to say,

"Hey, this guy's good with words."

(gospel choir singing)

Snoop's mother, Beverly, she did the best that she could

because, you know, she was a single mother who worked

and took care of three boys.

(man) We have this money around this motherfucker, too.

(Darryl) He started hanging around the Rollin 20s, you know.

Rollin 20s as in Crips.

Long Beach, there are no Bloods.

It's all Crip.

He got his education from them.

He learned how to make something

out of nothing, and they embraced him.

(Darryl) She was not having it.

"You not gonna be sellin' no dope in my house.

Bringing all them mother--, shooting over here."

And she put him out.

Oh, yeah, she was no joke.

Snoop was sleeping in a Camaro.

It was his shelter.

(Snoop Dogg) Did what I did and, you know,

kept on doing what I was doing.

You know, God has his way of dealing with life.

So, I made a sale one time, I sold to an undercover officer.

So, I was, like...

I went ahead and just pleaded guilty.

(Darryl) He was in there at the same time I was.

I think I came down from the pen to the county

and I heard, they said "Your cousin's in there."

And they said, "He rapping."

It was a 100% turning point for Snoop when he got out of jail.

You couldn't talk to him unless it was about music.

(Snoop) As I got older, I started seeing that the problems

was just making it hard on my mom,

and I didn't want my mama to suffer so, you know,

I had to get into something positive,

which is rap, you know what I'm saying?

♪♪

Yeah, I was doing underground tapes with my DJ, Warren G.

(Duke) We had the V.I.P. Records which was a staple in our community.

And that's where they made their demo.

Rumor had it Snoop had an opportunity

to connect with Dre through Warren G's relationship.

Yo, how does it feel being Dr. Dre of NWA's brother?

I mean, it's, like...

Is it more of a simple blessing?

Yeah, I'd have to say that. It's more of a simple blessing.

I was at a bachelor party for one of my friends,

and my brother was there, and he popped the tape in.

♪ And as you listen to the lyrics you will say ♪

♪ It's about time for Snoop the Dogg to do his thing ♪

♪ And put ya'll all on in the insane type of thing... ♪♪

I wasn't like knocked off my feet or anything like that.

Uh, it just grabbed my interest.

(Dr. Dre) I was working on the title track for the "Deep Cover" soundtrack.

I decided that at least have to get him in the studio

and see if we can vibe together at all.

(fast rewind audio)

♪ I can feel it...

I was, like, hyper and...

so happy to be working with Dre.

And then I was like, "Let me calm down

"and get on this professional tip.

"'Cause I'm working with Dre because

I'm supposed to be working with Dre."

I was in the studio.

I heard Snoop say, "When do I stop rapping?"

So I took the pad and said,

"When you do 16 of these lines, you're done."

(laughs)

♪ Creep with me as I crawl through the hood ♪

♪ Maniac, lunatic, call him Snoop Eastwood... ♪

(Dre) He got on the mic and was real comfortable.

Vocal control was there.

One take, in and out.

You know, I just knew he had something.

Bam, that's it right there.

(Snoop) Mm-hmm.

Not really. Really?

The video did, though.

♪ You never hear me hollerin' about peace so yo ♪

When I seen myself on MTV, "Yo! MTV Raps,"

and I seen the kind of respect that we was getting

from the East Coast, it didn't make me big-headed.

It made me wanna work.

(Dre) "Deep Cover," what it did,

it set the stage for me and Snoop.

It let us know that

we can get together and we can make history straight up.

(woman) Can we get a shot of that? Of Snoop's necklace?

(Snoop) It's the chronic.

(Dre) I've just been trying to put together a new family.

Get a new crew of people that are hungry

and ready to do whatever they have to do

to make a good record.

(click track plays)

♪ Swing down sweet chariot, stop and let me ride... ♪♪

You can't talk about the greatest albums ever without

talking about "The Chronic" from Death Row Records.

♪ Swing down sweet chariot stop ♪

♪ Wait a minute ♪ And let me ride

♪ I think I see the mothership coming... ♪

The approach was, like, we gotta do some

crazy Parliament-Funkadelic shit on this album.

♪♪

That little high-pitched melody is from the Moog.

Same keyboard they use in Parliament-Funkadelic.

The Moog definitely gave "The Chronic" album

and Dre his own unique sound.

They called it G-funk then.

♪♪

(man) It seems to me like you've always been more comfortable

in the recording studio, behind the scenes.

Definitely.

I'll get on a mic and say something

if I feel like I'm gonna sound right on a song but...

I hate the way I sound on tape a lot of times, you know?

I wanna be behind the board pushing the buttons.

I started figuring if I write with him,

you know what I'm saying, I can get more up out of it.

So, I started writing songs for us together.

And there you have it.

That's dope!

I don't think there's a "Chronic" album without Snoop.

Because he wrote so many of the songs on the album,

and then he brought other people to the table.

(Kurupt) I first came to Death Row in '92.

It was nothing but a whole

environment of pure fire.

Doc Dre in the studio making the beats.

We bustin' to 'em outside in the hallway.

Me and Daz...

Nate Dogg... RBX...

Rage, D.O.C. out there, we just bustin' back and forth,

keeping our knives sharp.

Death Row was like a gladiator school.

It was a-- a vibe with just a bunch of hungry people

that's dying for the world to hear their music.

(Suge Knight) I treated it just like it was a football team.

This is gonna be like a training camp.

Have everybody together, where they eat together

and damn near sleep together, and they work together.

Suge was a mentor. He was like a father figure.

He really took us all under his wing.

Bloods and Crips all together as one in unity.

(man) How we was able to get along,

a lot of Bloods that was over there,

they respect real dudes.

You know, you got two real ones facing each other,

y'all rather be friends than to get into it

'cause it's gonna be destruction.

(Snoop) Suge got me an apartment in Hollywood,

and everybody moved in with me.

Ate Popeyes Chicken. Smoked the best chronic.

You know, you sitting here definitely in the chronic zone

with my nigga Snoop Dogg...

I'm the one who brought the chronic to the table.

They'll tell you.

(chuckles)

(overlapping chatter)

(Kurupt) Yeah, "The Chronic,"

the title came from Dogg.

(Snoop) I don't even think Dre was smoking chronic

when we was working on this album.

So, Snoopy's whole thing, Doc Dre is, like,

"Look, the chronic is number one on the streets.

Your album is 'The Chronic'."

Then Doc Dre was like, "Yeah..."

Yeah, he loved it.

(Snoop) We was all happy to be a part of it,

and we gave our best ideas.

And we gave up everything that was in us for this project.

That's dope.

(all) Boycott Time Warner! Boycott Time Warner!

At the same time that gangsta rap was selling a lot

of records, it was also creating a lot of controversy.

(newsman) In 1992, protests aimed at Time Warner's stockholders

may have aided in the decision

to stop distributing "Cop Killer" by Ice-T.

(Jake) You have Ice-T's "Cop Killer."

You had incidents like the kid that shot the police officer

and claimed he was listening to a rap record.

(man) The music he was listening to which was in the tape deck

from Tupac...

probably did influence him and cause him to shoot that trooper.

But the big issue, you know, is Eric right?

The claim that Eazy-E was forced to sign a release...

(beep)

...to let Dre out of the NWA group.

(Dre) Everybody was turning their back on us because

of the Ruthless situation and what they were hearing

and reading about,

how the releases got obtained and what have you.

And all the American companies, they didn't wanna touch it.

And all of a sudden, we didn't have the vehicle or the funds

to really distribute the music.

(Snoop) We gave our best ideas.

And we gave up everything that was in us for this project.

(Dre) Everybody was turning their back on us

because of the Ruthless situation.

(man) We put everybody in the industry on notice.

Dre was signed to Ruthless, and respect that,

or otherwise you will be dragged into this situation.

Finally, boom, here comes Jimmy Iovine.

He was the one that came in and had

the guts to say, "Okay, I'm gonna deal with this."

It started out Dre was a producer.

And then there was Suge, who was sort of the business guy.

But also talented, very talented guy.

They came in and they just said, "We're being sued.

"We have these releases.

"We think that they're legitimate.

Everybody's saying they're not."

I wasn't gonna do a full-blown investigation on who said what.

I just literally heard the music.

Suge and Dre played us "The Chronic."

And the song "G Thang" reminded me

of when I first heard "Satisfaction."

It just did.

Suge walked in with a finished product in "The Chronic"

and said, "We are going to own this master.

"You will have percentages of it,

but it's not like the old model."

And when you've got a six-foot, 200 and some odd pound guy

say, "This is the deal, fellas, do you want it or not?"

Because they also wanted to be in business with Dr. Dre,

they took it.

(man) When did you become aware that Suge Knight

had this reputation of using force or intimidation?

Well, I mean, you know, I, uh...

I just... I don't,

I don't really wanna get-- I can't get into that.

I can tell you what our experience was with them,

which was fine.

But before we closed a deal, we had to go settle a couple

of lawsuits 'cause they were being sued by Ruthless.

So, I said, "Look, we'd like to be in business with these guys.

Could we make a straight-up deal?"

And Jerry Heller made deals with us.

And we got all the releases and all the documentation.

And, um, we were on.

(man) Jimmy didn't care about all that stuff.

Jimmy cared about the music and breaking acts.

And if we could make it go away with a check...

It wasn't his money he was writing the check for.

(woman) So, you're officially out of NWA?

Yeah, NWA is no more as far as I'm concerned.

They took advantage of me not knowing the record business

back in the day.

I know what's up with those numbers now.

Can't be -- with.

(man) Okay, if you're gonna leave, fine.

But with a deal, you're gonna pay Ruthless overrides.

(Eazy-E) I'll make money off of him for the next six years

and everything that he touches.

So, I hope that "Chronic" blow up so, you know,

I could buy me a new home or something, you know?

(woman) This call is from a federal prison.

(Jake) This is the other thing to remember.

Harry-O had a silent partnership in Death Row.

His $1.5 million helped seed Death Row Records.

(cheering and applause)

(Snoop) Yeah! Check it out!

(Kevin) I remember "The Chronic" came out in late '92,

I was just, like, "Man, this is gonna be big."

(Snoop) It's gangsta time! Hello!

Different season.

♪ Ahh...

(man) "The Chronic" album was monumental.

That was, like, one of the landmarks.

♪ One, two, three and to the four ♪

♪ Snoop Doggy Dogg and Dr. Dre is at the door... ♪♪

(OYG) The music gave people the feeling of euphoria.

Low riders, smokin' weed, fuckin'...

It was like being at a party

in the ghetto, like, damn.

(man) "The Chronic" was about having fun, but also,

it spoke for the streets.

For the brothers in jail.

For the Crips and Bloods,

for the Mexicans, for the the Esés.

It was their unfiltered soundtrack.

♪ Little ghetto boy...

But there's also social commentary, "Little Ghetto Boy."

There's commentary about the L.A. riots.

(all chanting) No justice, no peace! No justice, no peace!

(Kevin) You could play "The Chronic" right now

and "Little Ghetto Boy" sound like Trayvon Martin.

(chanting) No justice, no peace! No justice, no peace!

Like, what-- What the fuck is going on?

But "The Chronic" was also a work of art that was

constructing narratives in the way that hardcore

gangster movies had for many years before this.

(P. Frank) So, when you heard "The Chronic" and you in New York,

Oakland or Minnesota, you were, like,

wow, this is a whole nother world.

The album blew the fuck up.

(woman) The album, it's doing really, really well.

Did you expect it to do this?

I expected it to do good but as fast as... as it did, you know?

The people that I have behind me are getting it on the radio.

And that's something that I've never had before.

92.3 The Beat.

This is Megan from Woodland Hills.

Can you guys play that song "G Thang"?

(man) For better, for worse, gang banging went pop.

Everybody found their inner gangsta, you know? Everybody.

What made "The Chronic" pop friendly

was Dre's production.

His sound was so pristine.

His studio chops were on another level.

I like the bass beat, and I like the message

that the rappers are putting out now.

And I think for a lot of white suburbanites,

it became a way for them to

rebel against their circumstances.

There's something that's a little dangerous

without getting too close to the reality of it.

(Todd) More and more singles would be put out.

It's on not just "Yo! MTV Raps,"

but it's in regular rotation across MTV.

Yo, I'm Bill Bellamy, you're chilling with Dre and Snoop.

Death Row's definitely in the house.

Take five.

Wait a minute, I remember when, you know,

MTV barely showed any black artists.

Now they're playing "Chronic" videos over and over again.

It became, like, this pop culture phenomenon.

And boom, Death Row Records

becomes a multi-million dollar label.

♪♪

Death Row's gonna be the biggest record company there is.

"The Chronic" album is the foundation.

Y'all know the motherfuckin' song!

Yeah, check it out!

Dre album is at three million.

You got Snoop album.

It's probably the most anticipated

rap album in the history coming out.

Uh, be on the lookout for that brand-new Snoop Dogg album.

(all laughing)

(woman) What's the name?!

Uh, it's called "Doggystyle," produced by Dr. Dre.

You know what I'm saying? Death Row is in full motion.

Dr. Dre, we all in the house!

(shouting indistinctly) Yes! (laughing)

Everybody was loving them some Death Row Records.

They were loving them some Dre and Snoop.

This is Dr. Dre.

(man) Records blowing up on the box.

Hell, yeah!

Now we're getting ready to go on tour.

(Kurt Loder) In our summer concert report,

this time an exclusive on what should be

one of the biggest rap tours of the upcoming season.

"The Chronic" tour headlined by the multi-platinum Dr. Dre.

And also featuring Dre's partner Snoop Doggy Dogg.

We were all set up to rehearse "The Chronic" tour.

Everybody was at the rehearsal except Snoop.

I'm, like, "Yo... what-- what-- what's going on?"

(beep)

(man) And whenever you get speed.

Hi, I'm Kurt Loder-- as we were going to press

with this week's edition of "The Week in Rock,"

a Los Angeles police bulletin came in

reporting an arrest warrant was issued

for 21-year-old Calvin Broadus,

better known as rap star Snoop Doggy Dogg,

in connection with the murder of a man

named Philip Woldermarian in what police believe

was a gang-related shooting.

I just thought it was nuts, I thought it was crazy, like...

(Kurt) The status of Snoop's tour with Dr. Dre is unknown.

Snoop's solo debut album, called "Doggystyle,"

was scheduled to be released

on Dre's own label, Death Row Records.

"Oh, shit, how do we get out of this one?"

(newsman) It happened in this Los Angeles park.

Snoop's bodyguard shot and killed

24-year-old Philip Woldermarian.

Snoop didn't pull the trigger.

But he, the bodyguard and a third man

were all charged with murder because

prosecutors say they hunted down Woldermarian

after an earlier argument.

I mean, uh, that's, like,

a horrible day in my life,

and I really don't like to relive that.

When you in a situation like that it's so horrible, you know.

It touches a lot of emotions, you know what I'm saying?

It's, like, bad memories.

Snoop had gotten into an altercation verbally

with this kid, Philip Woldermarian.

And so they have an argument a few different times.

And I think it was a little gang taunting going back and forth.

Later on, Snoop and his bodyguard,

they were driving down the street in this jeep,

and they went back and forth with this guy.

And allegedly, he was trying to say something to them.

He had a gun and... you know, he was going for it.

And my bodyguard reacted, you know,

like he was supposed to do.

Snoop's bodyguard shot and killed Philip Woldermarian.

It was traumatic and didn't know what to do

and, you know, who to turn to.

I did receive the phone call about what happened.

We didn't turn Snoop in right then and there.

Snoop was in hiding for a little bit.

(Snoop) I wanted to turn myself in because

I didn't wanna be you know, looked at

as somebody who did a crime and running, you know?

I'm innocent, and I wanna go turn myself in

and let them know what happened.

Death Row's known all afternoon that they're gonna have to turn

Snoop in, but they don't, because that same week

were the MTV Music Awards.

This is a promotion pre-booked for "Doggystyle."

Hi, I'm Kurt Loder.

And I'm Tabitha Soren.

Welcome to "Opening Act,"

the MTV News pre-video music awards special.

Let's see who call was that?

Whose call do we think that was? (chuckling)

That was a Suge call.

It wasn't a Snoop decision.

It was what you were supposed to do.

(Dre) Me and Snoop rode together to that show.

Went through all the-- the photos.

Cameras went crazy.

Next thing I know, here-- here are these detectives

coming out looking for Snoop.

(siren pulses)

(Jake) We've got sheriff's department

and LAPD and-- and everybody outside,

and Suge made an agreement.

"Let's do this, like, dignified.

Let's not make a perp walk out of it."

Dr. Dre and Snoop Doggy Dogg.

Thanks for being here, guys.

What's happening? What's up?

Let him go on, and that then he would

quietly go out and turn himself in.

Here's Dr. Dre, Snoop Doggy Dogg and George Clinton!

Imagine the natural pressures of having the spotlight on you

at that-- having the whole label's momentum on your back.

He knew his freedom might be at stake.

And, uh, the winner is...

En Vogue.

(applause)

(Jake) Snoop turns himself in for first-degree murder.

Immediately Suge gets him released

on a $1 million bond with a 10:00 p.m. house arrest.

I'm, like, "Damn, you got a murder and you out?"

Suge made shit happen.

Suge has this reputation he's building,

creating this impression of-- of kind of invulnerability.

Snoop was all over the news when this story broke.

It was completely a tragedy because Snoop was our guy

that we were banking heavy for

to be successful and represent Long Beach.

(Darryl) I was scared for him, you know?

A kid is dead and he talking about,

"I had something to do with it.

Possibility I can get the death penalty for this shit."

(Big C-Style) Kinda mess Snoop head up.

Gotta remember, you just came from these sidewalks out here,

not having nothing, to having something,

to now you got a murder case.

(Nate Dogg) And the possibility of him

going to jail forever and...

Everything we worked for, hard for is just gone,

just blown out the window, I mean...

It was a scary time.

(Big C-Style) We all had to sit there with him and support him

the best we could to keep him moving forward.

(Snoop) ♪ With so much drama in the L-B-C ♪

♪ It's kinda hard being Snoop D-O-double-G ♪

♪ But I somehow some way keep comin' up ♪

♪ With funky-ass hits like every single day ♪

Ay, what's that? Let that ride, nigga!

"Doggystyle" was inspiring to him.

Snoop, tell me a little bit

about the process of making an album?

All of us together, Dogg Pound, me, Rage, RBX, it don't stop.

We all puttin' in with Dre behind the board, it's all good.

(director) And action!

(high-pitched vocalizing)

We were doing videos over here and videos over there.

It was a good thing.

♪ Rollin down the street, smokin' indo ♪

♪ Sippin' on gin and juice

♪ Laid back

♪ With my mind on my money ♪

♪ And my money on my mind ♪

(Kurupt) "Doggystyle" was the one that set

everybody else up to become stars.

Suge's main thing was be seen more.

We use videos, get your face out there, you know what I'm saying?

So, when I got that part in "What's My Name?"

♪ What's your name, fool?

I got my first real video.

And in that Doggy Dogg World I'm finally shining.

♪ Ay well if you show me freaks, I wind up in all ten ♪

♪ See my homey Snoop Dogg sipping juice and gin... ♪

Couldn't wait for it to go on TV.

We felt that we was about to be unstoppable.

♪ It's a Doggy Dogg World

♪♪

Yeah! We gon' keep this shit on something like this!

(newsman) Out on $1 million bail,

Snoop Doggy Dogg is out on tour with Dr. Dre.

(Kurt Loder) Snoop Doggy Dogg will be unveiling what should be

one of the biggest rap albums of the upcoming season.

(man) There's been some negative publicity, you know about that.

What kind of effect do you feel

it will have on that upcoming project?

There's just gonna give us that much more energy

knowing that people is working that hard to knock us down.

You know what I'm saying? And to help us stay focused

on being positive with what we doing.

Everybody with all these rumors

need to just, uh, shut the fuck up.

Sing that shit!

(crowd cheering)

Yeah!

Everybody with all these rumors

need to just, uh, shut the fuck up.

Sing that shit!

Snoop's not in jail or nothing like that.

He's right here.

He's out and he's getting ready to come out pretty soon.

Title of the album's "Doggystyle," and it's gonna be

just as good as my album if not better.

Right now I feel like it's gonna be better.

The criminal justice system will determine the outcome

of the charges pending against Snoop Doggy Dogg.

The free enterprise system will decide

if the old adage "crime doesn't pay"

will get one more rebuttal in the record store.

(newsman) He's known as Snoop Doggy Dog,

and his new record album "Doggystyle" out today

will likely go right to the top of the chart.

♪♪

(newswoman) This is East Long Beach, California.

Snoop Doggy Dogg's hood, the place where he grew up.

People here are so proud of him, one local record store even

put a dog house on its roof to promote his new album.

Listening to Snoop Dogg.

Obviously that's real popular.

(man) Before there was even a title of the album,

before there was a release date, they were asking for it.

♪ Snoop Doggy Dog

♪ Snoopy Dogg, Snoopy Dogg ♪

(newsman) He's also just been indicted for murder in Los Angeles.

Snoop Doggy Dogg, born Calvin Broadus,

insists he's innocent.

(Jake) Snoop's "Doggystyle" debut goes number one

the same week he's indicted for first degree murder.

The media is now involved.

The feeding frenzy began.

(Robert) The media used him as a tool to leverage

some of the negativity around hip-hop.

(Elizabeth Vargas) A handful of gangsta rap superstars

are not just singing about being mean and nasty and vicious.

They're accused of living up to their lyrics.

(Ben) Snoop Dogg faced a lot of criticism

that the themes in his music were becoming real life.

(newsman) One result of all the notoriety

is that Snoop Doggy Dogg and the others

are likely to sell even more records.

If there had been no accusations of murder,

would that record still have been so successful?

I would argue... no.

It would've sold, but it would not have drawn

the attention that it drew.

(Rob) "Keeping it real" was the parlance of the day.

It just made what he said on record more real.

Murder sells.

That's why people do videos on sex and murder.

Whatever it takes to sell records, it's good.

Now if you're a rapper and you see you're getting

$1 million of free publicity out of something

like that, what are you gonna do?

Are you gonna run from those cameras?

And if you're Suge Knight and you can actually metrically

trace record sales to the amount of coverage coming out,

you're gonna try to fuse those things and coincide them

because everyone makes more money.

Record companies producing music known as gangsta rap

are once again under fire from critics

who say their lyrics promote violence and obscenity.

You know, if it's like that, you gotta say the same thing

for people such as Stephen King, because I ain't never known

Stephen King to make a happy movie.

Death's all through the movie,

and you don't see him get no flak.

The thing is this-- we black,

and we telling the reality side of life.

Sure, you're talking about crack, you're talking about

what's going on, police brutality, that's, and all that.

But you also bringing women in the mix

where they are being demeaned.

This here is what made me put on my sneaks

that I used in the march with Dr. King.

(Cheryl) Civil rights people like C. DeLores Tucker

really expressed concerns about this whole image of women

as being subordinate, pretty much props.

My-- excuse the expression, my bitches, my hoes.

(Michel'le) At the time, even though men

were calling us names and everything,

I think we were chanting it as well.

And I don't think women took it literal like they do today.

If you call a woman some name, she takes that, like, "Oh!"

We didn't take it that way, like, that wasn't my name.

So, I wasn't gonna turn around.

It was music, first of all. It was art.

If you read the language, you will see words

that you can't even repeat in a locker room.

(C. Delores) Dr. King would take great offense to the children

of his God being treated with such malice and insensitivity.

The rap environment was misogynist.

The entire way rappers dealt with women collectively,

was-- was problematic.

You know I love you, right baby?

Psh, you don't love me, you just love my doggystyle.

But there was something about Snoop that everybody loved,

whether you acknowledge it or not.

(audience cheering)

(man) Your sons or daughters may have CDs or cassettes

in their room right now that contain

lyrics that promote rape, murder, racism, drug abuse,

and violence against women and children.

(Snoop) I don't mean to be political 'cause that ain't even me.

But I'm gon' express the real from my heart.

Don't be on TV talking bad about me saying this and that.

Come get at me 'cause y'all don't know me.

Y'all come holla at me and see the reals.

We at Death Row, y'all know where it's at.

Wilshire Westwood Boulevard.

(newsman) He's just been indicted for murder in Los Angeles.

Snoop Doggy Dogg insists he's innocent,

and he's free on $1 million bail.

The same week he's indicted for first-degree murder,

his album goes to number one.

(Elizabeth Vargas) "Doggystyle" was the hottest album in the country this week,

beating out everyone from Pearl Jam to Sinatra.

♪♪

♪ Da da da da ♪

♪ Ay ay ay ♪

"Doggystyle," that was success.

That's when the money came in.

Snoop bought his first house.

♪ Yeah yeah ♪

He bought his first car.

But Snoop was in hiding.

He feared that this case could be the end of his career.

(Dre) Y'all got kind of quiet out there!

It's party of one!

♪ This is for the Gz and this is for the hustlas ♪

♪ This is for the hustlas now back to the Gz... ♪

(Jake) While Snoop's back home,

Suge and Dre were tearing up the clubs.

They were legendary for their after-hours parities.

♪ This is for the Gz and this is for the hustlas... ♪

Death Row parties were super bananas.

Everybody wanted to be at them damn parties.

You could just come and have fun without spending a dime.

(Dre) I was wild, the people around me are wild.

There was nobody there to say...

"Yo, we don't need to do that, that's not cool."

You know what I'm saying?

(Suge) We didn't sleep, I mean, we did everything

you could possibly think of under the sun.

If you wanted a girl, no matter whose girl she was,

you could have her.

I had more women than now. My coochie way up there.

I used to be thinking I was asleep sometime,

like, "This shit can't be real."

(screaming)

♪ I blow up your mouth like I was Dizzy Gillespie ♪

♪ I'm crazy you can't phase me... ♪

(man) Hanging with Suge, every day

was, like, an adventure

'cause this man has so much money.

He walking around with almost $100,000

in a briefcase every day.

You wanted a car, two cars, five cars,

a house in Calabasas, you could have it.

(Suge) From planes to limos to, you know, yachts,

we experienced things that the average person

in many years of a lifetime wouldn't experience.

(Michel'le) We was rolling, and Suge looked at it as an image thing.

He knew that if you were with Death Row,

you had to look the part.

(Scott) We were giving Death Row lots and lots of money.

We'd cut a check for $20 million,

and that would be to pay for whatever is getting paid for.

But we didn't know of the specifics of it.

That money went to Suge and his guys

to do what they did with it.

♪ ...for the hustlers, now back to the Gz... ♪

♪ Freeze ♪

(Dre) We was balling out.

Fast life, just the partying and spending a lot of money

that I didn't really need to be spending.

(Jake) When Suge and Dre were tearing up the clubs

and you're hearing all these stories and incidents,

Snoop's never in that narrative.

What's up, little man?

Once he goes on trial for murder,

he's being forced to come in by 10:00 at night.

I always think about that

because it's reality, you know what I'm saying?

I mean, if God want that to happen for me,

I have to go deal with it and handle my business.

Until then, my mission is to do this music

and do what I'm supposed to do

as far regulate in this whole hop-hop game.

♪ As I look up at the sky ♪

♪ My mind starts trippin', a tear drops my eye... ♪♪

I'ma take my video to the big screen.

Coming to a theater nearest you, "Murder Was The Case."

♪ Dear God, I wonder can ya save me? ♪

♪ I can't die my Boo-Boo's 'bout to have my baby ♪

(Darryl) Shante who was his wife, she was pregnant.

Them about to have a baby, too.

"God, you give me this, you gon' take it away from me?"

Boo-Boo's about to have the baby, Boo-Boo had it.

How old is he, Snoop? Three months.

Yo, Snoop Dogg, B.G. Snoop Dogg, my little son.

He helped me understand whole lot of different things

as far as making a switch from a teenager to an adult.

He had to grow up. He had no choice, you know?

(Jake) It was one of the-- he says himself,

one of the most stabilizing periods of his life.

♪♪

And while he maintained the visual presence,

the videos and, you know, performances,

and he talked the talk and that, he also had to walk

a very delicate line with the court.

Let everyone know, including the judge that held

his freedom in his hand, "I'm not this murderer."

(Snoop) I'm not happy that someone ended up dead,

and I gotta go to court for this and...

people thinking I'm some killer.

♪ Murder was the case that they gave me... ♪♪

(newsman) Snoop must convince a jury he's not the gangster in his music.

Calvin Broadus goes on trial this summer.

I talk from my heart. I'm real.

Whatever comes, comes.

You --!

(newsman) Shakur accused of a sexual attack.

(gunshots)

Pac told Suge that Biggie and Puffy

knew he was gonna be shot.

Suge wanted everybody to know that he had Tupac's back.

(Suge) Pac knew that no matter what,

me and him was (indistinct).

Suge walked to the car, Puffy's little soldier came up

and started shooting at him.

(gunshots)

-- this rap shit, y'all come out here

we gon' kill you --.

♪♪