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Snoop Doggy Dogg: Murder Was The Case · DISGRACELAND

0:00
Speaker 1: Disgraceland as a production of Double Elvis. The stories about
0:16
Speaker 1: Snoop Doggie Dog are insane. He was a member of
0:19
Speaker 1: the infamous Rowan twenty Cripps Street gang. He went to
0:23
Speaker 1: jail for cocaine possession. He became a pimp after becoming
0:26
Speaker 1: a worldwide hip hop star. To this day he smokes
0:30
Speaker 1: copious amounts of the chronic, even claiming to have gotten
0:33
Speaker 1: high in the bathroom of the White House back in
0:35
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen. He coaches youth football, is BFFs with Martha Stewart,
0:41
Speaker 1: and depending on who you talk to, is one of
0:43
Speaker 1: the most talented rappers of all time. He is iconic,
0:46
Speaker 1: known the world over by the one syllable nicknames Mama
0:49
Speaker 1: gave him Snoop, Though he now occupies coveted real estate
0:53
Speaker 1: on Hollywood Boulevard in the form of a star on
0:56
Speaker 1: the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Snoop came up on different streets,
1:00
Speaker 1: gang torn streets of Long Beach, California, streets that despite
1:03
Speaker 1: his stardom, he'd never really be able to leave behind,
1:06
Speaker 1: Streets that would nearly derail his career. But despite all
1:10
Speaker 1: that noise, or perhaps because of it, Snoop made great music.
1:14
Speaker 1: That music you heard at the top of the show
1:16
Speaker 1: that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from
1:19
Speaker 1: my melotron called slow Street bassa klav BK one. I
1:24
Speaker 1: played you that loop because I can't afford the rights
1:26
Speaker 1: to exhale Shoop shoot by Whitney Houston. And why would
1:30
Speaker 1: I play you that specific slice of uninspired Betty Ever
1:33
Speaker 1: Biting Cheese? Could I afford it? Because that was the
1:37
Speaker 1: number one song in America on November twenty seven, nineteen
1:40
Speaker 1: ninety five, And that was the day that Snoop Doggie
1:43
Speaker 1: Dog aka the do doubleg entered a Los Angeles Superior
1:47
Speaker 1: courtroom to defend himself against the first degree murder charge
1:51
Speaker 1: that will potentially send him to prison for the rest
1:53
Speaker 1: of his life. On this episode, Slow bossa Stolen Cheese
1:59
Speaker 1: the Streets a murder case in Snoop Dogg. I'm Jake
2:03
Speaker 1: Brennan and this this disgraceland. As far back as Snoop
2:31
Speaker 1: could remember, he always wanted to be a pimp. Snoop
2:41
Speaker 1: grew up as Calvin Broutis Junior in Long Beach, California
2:45
Speaker 1: East Side, but up by Wriggle near the pch The
2:48
Speaker 1: prostitutes were owned free. It was pimp lad. The neighborhood
2:52
Speaker 1: was a remnant of what had become of Long Beach's
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Speaker 1: notorious ocean front slum known as the Jungle. By the
2:58
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties, the sailors and dock workers
3:01
Speaker 1: from earlier in the century had been replaced by the
3:04
Speaker 1: gang bangers and traveling businessmen, and the pimps ruled it
3:08
Speaker 1: all and styled as a kid, Snoop vibed on Iceberg Slim,
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Speaker 1: whose autobiography Pimp The Story of My Life brought pimping
3:16
Speaker 1: out of the shadows and onto bookshelves alongside books by
3:19
Speaker 1: black power icons like Malcolm X and Eldritch Cleaver. Young
3:24
Speaker 1: Snoop wasn't the only one enthralled by pimp culture. Seventies
3:27
Speaker 1: filmmakers couldn't put the pimps down either. Harvey kai Tell's
3:31
Speaker 1: Sport from Taxi Driver and Rudy ray Moore's Dolomite gave
3:34
Speaker 1: young kids in the seventies a glamorized view into the
3:37
Speaker 1: seedy underbelly of the street. Dolomite's comedic blend on black
3:41
Speaker 1: exploitation was particularly compelling. Dolomite is my name and fucking
3:47
Speaker 1: up motherfuckers is my game. I'm Dolomite. I'm the one
3:50
Speaker 1: that killed Monday, what Tuesday put Wednesday in the hospital,
3:53
Speaker 1: called up Thursday to tell Friday not to bury Saturday
3:55
Speaker 1: on a Sunday. I'm the one. I'm the one who
3:58
Speaker 1: had the elephant roosted in trees and all the ants
4:00
Speaker 1: wearing BBDs. These characters in these films were part of
4:05
Speaker 1: the hood curriculum for Snoop. Years later, after becoming a
4:09
Speaker 1: hip hop sensation, Snoop would try his hand to pimp
4:11
Speaker 1: and for real. He had at least two women going
4:16
Speaker 1: at all times, sometimes as many as ten, all various
4:19
Speaker 1: hotel rooms that he'd have booked adjacent whatever hotel suite
4:22
Speaker 1: he was staying in while on the road. Back in
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Speaker 1: two thousand and three, his clients were entertainers and athletes.
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Speaker 1: Discerning clientele who could afford the services of Snoop so
4:32
Speaker 1: called hose and also keep a secret. Snoop couldn't believe
4:36
Speaker 1: the money he was generating, not that he needed it.
4:39
Speaker 1: By this time, Snoop was one of the biggest stars
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Speaker 1: in entertainment, and his experienced pimping, along with his love
4:44
Speaker 1: for Dolomite would eventually inform his later performance in two
4:48
Speaker 1: thousand and four was Starsky and Hutch as Huggy Bear,
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Speaker 1: the pimped out underworld contact for Ben Stiller. Starsky and
4:53
Speaker 1: Owen Wilson's Hutch Snoop took the streets he came up
4:58
Speaker 1: on into the mainstream and use them to turn himself
5:01
Speaker 1: into one of the most recognizable stars in the world.
5:06
Speaker 1: His stars shot out of the gangster rap scene, a
5:09
Speaker 1: scene that truly began its ascent in nineteen ninety two.
5:12
Speaker 1: After its biggest group compidence, NWA had splintered that year.
5:17
Speaker 1: Within a month of each other, two of NWA's biggest
5:19
Speaker 1: stars released what would become two of Gangster Rap's most
5:23
Speaker 1: enduring musical statements, Ice Cubes The Predator and Doctor Dre's
5:27
Speaker 1: The Chronic. Both albums are, in a word, great. Ice
5:32
Speaker 1: Cubes The Predator is hard, mean, unflinching and unforgiving. It
5:37
Speaker 1: picks up where NWA is fucked the police left off
5:40
Speaker 1: and doesn't look back in a way. It's what we
5:42
Speaker 1: expected from Cube at the time, a no holds barred
5:45
Speaker 1: assessment of life on the La streets, streets where you
5:48
Speaker 1: could still smell the burning embers of the La riots
5:50
Speaker 1: from six months earlier. Doctor Dre's The Chronic, on the
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Speaker 1: other hand, wasn't necessarily what the world was expecting. It's
5:57
Speaker 1: raw and in its own way, an unflinching look at
5:59
Speaker 1: life on Compton Streets, but straight out The Chronic is
6:02
Speaker 1: a party record. Drey threw George Clinton sink at the project,
6:06
Speaker 1: and the result was nothing short of jaw dropping. The
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Speaker 1: first fifteen seconds on the album are gripping. Drey's brief,
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Speaker 1: plain and spoken dedication is the first thing you hear.
6:16
Speaker 1: Then Welcome to Death Row, after that harsh clanging of
6:21
Speaker 1: a prison cell door being slammed shut. Then in an instant,
6:25
Speaker 1: the vive lightness to the sound of a last poet's
6:28
Speaker 1: vocal sample, A raspy, slack jawed voice chimes in like
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Speaker 1: we always do about this time. A second later, a
6:35
Speaker 1: boisterous ha ha. The beat drops. It's big and so
6:40
Speaker 1: is the synth Drey's patent did Compton whistle? And then
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Speaker 1: that voice Yeah, nine deuce Death Row records creeping while
6:49
Speaker 1: you're sleeping and you're off off on some trip you've
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Speaker 1: never been off onto before. That new voice is taking
6:56
Speaker 1: you for a ride. And you're in the back seat,
6:58
Speaker 1: head back, the top down. This herb everywhere and the
7:01
Speaker 1: voice is transcendent, new, fresh, largely unknown. It's Drey's record,
7:06
Speaker 1: but this young pup named Snoop is owning it from
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Speaker 1: the outset, announcing his arrival with authority, and Dre with
7:13
Speaker 1: the type of confidence most artists can only dream of,
7:16
Speaker 1: has the sand to let this newbie hijack his mothership
7:18
Speaker 1: and let him ride straight to number three on the
7:20
Speaker 1: Billboard charts. The record is a banger, a crossover success
7:25
Speaker 1: for hip hop that up to that point was unimaginable.
7:28
Speaker 1: Dubbed Gangs Delight, the record was unavoidable through late ninety
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Speaker 1: two and ninety three. Black kids, white kids, high school kids,
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Speaker 1: college kids, and adults with ears everywhere get hooked on
7:38
Speaker 1: the chronic and by extension, hooked on Snoop Dog as well.
7:43
Speaker 1: Of the sixteen tracks and the chronic, Snoop is on
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Speaker 1: eleven and he shined to call it his breakout as
7:48
Speaker 1: an understatement his laid back flow of voke Wrap's earlier
7:52
Speaker 1: storytellers like Slick Rick or too Short. But it's otherwise
7:56
Speaker 1: totally unique, Unlike any voice performed in the lyrics, Gangsty.
8:15
Speaker 1: The Chronic would go on to be certified Triple platinum,
8:18
Speaker 1: three million records, and the world wanted more, more dre
8:21
Speaker 1: but also more Snoop. So when Snoop's debut album, Doggy
8:26
Speaker 1: Style was released the following year, it debuted at number
8:29
Speaker 1: one on the Billboard Charts, the first ever for a
8:32
Speaker 1: debut artist album. Doggy Style, along with its follow up,
8:37
Speaker 1: The Dogfather, both sold in the multi millions. Snoop, whose
8:42
Speaker 1: style and delivery were instantly iconic, to say nothing of
8:45
Speaker 1: being recognizable, was a mainstay on MTV and on magazine covers.
8:49
Speaker 1: He was by any measure of success. Throughout the nineties
8:53
Speaker 1: and early two thousand, Snoop's notoriety and fame rose. Money
8:56
Speaker 1: wasn't an issue, so when he decided to start pimping
8:59
Speaker 1: into two thousand and three, again, it wasn't about the money.
9:03
Speaker 1: It was, as Snoop said quote about the fascination of
9:06
Speaker 1: being a pimp, I could fire a bitch, fuck a bitch,
9:09
Speaker 1: city to city, tity, hotel room to hotel room, athlete
9:13
Speaker 1: to athlete, entertainer to entertainer. Snoop at channel is down
9:18
Speaker 1: in dirty golomite. His inner Iceberg slim and had become
9:22
Speaker 1: for a brief period only his childhood fantasy. He'd come
9:26
Speaker 1: up from the street and was probably openly taking the
9:28
Speaker 1: street with him to ride Shotgun. Alongside his fame and success,
9:32
Speaker 1: two things in Snoop's life that only a few years
9:35
Speaker 1: earlier were far from certain. Jimmy Iviane was losing his shit.
10:11
Speaker 1: The record was supposed to be delivered weeks ago, and
10:14
Speaker 1: it wasn't the genius Doctor Dre, who was producing his
10:18
Speaker 1: protege Snoop's debut album, Doggie Style, needed more time. Ivine,
10:23
Speaker 1: founder chairman and CEO of Interscope Records, had shelled out
10:26
Speaker 1: ten million dollars in financing and distribution to death Row Records.
10:31
Speaker 1: The label was run by Blood Street gang affiliate Shug Knight,
10:34
Speaker 1: so Ivine couldn't exactly intimidate his artists to deliver, but
10:38
Speaker 1: he had no problem letting all parties concern know that
10:40
Speaker 1: he was incensed. From Ivine's perspective, Snoop, Drey and should
10:45
Speaker 1: had had more than enough time to deliver, but all
10:48
Speaker 1: he was hearing about was delay after delay. By comparison,
10:51
Speaker 1: Drey's chronic sessions had been focused Despite the fact that
10:55
Speaker 1: Dre produced the record amids the raging studio party, but
10:59
Speaker 1: the environments surround the creation of Doggy Style was an
11:01
Speaker 1: even bigger party, and sort of like Doggie Style itself,
11:05
Speaker 1: brimming with hedonism, indo, smoke, sex, jin juice, and the
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Speaker 1: occasional eruption of violence. It was all too much this
11:12
Speaker 1: time around, proving to be a distraction for the otherwise
11:15
Speaker 1: hyper focused Doctor Dre and so the album was delayed.
11:19
Speaker 1: But Iven was not worried. He knew it to push hard,
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Speaker 1: overpromise and somehow eventually deliver. Sure enough, the delay of
11:29
Speaker 1: the completed record, an issue that at one point seemed
11:32
Speaker 1: like an epic problem, proved itself to be a blessing
11:34
Speaker 1: in disguise. The longer the album went undelivered to record stores,
11:39
Speaker 1: the more anticipation built, and not just in the press.
11:42
Speaker 1: In high school corridors and on the street, kids were
11:45
Speaker 1: lining up and camping out at their local Tower Records
11:48
Speaker 1: in Sam Goody, hoping against hope that that would be
11:50
Speaker 1: the day that Stoop's record would be released and ready
11:53
Speaker 1: for them to purchase. The anticipation in the music industry
11:56
Speaker 1: was legit to satiate fans before the full album was
12:00
Speaker 1: ready Iveyan prepped the release of the single who Am I,
12:03
Speaker 1: What's My Name? And that meant they needed a video.
12:08
Speaker 1: They decided to shoot one of the performance segments on
12:10
Speaker 1: the corner of the Pacific Coast Highway and Martin Luther
12:13
Speaker 1: King Junior Avenue, the location of Long Beach's legendary VIP Records.
12:18
Speaker 1: Snoop would hold cord on the roof of the building
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Speaker 1: and hype up a street level crowd of a couple
12:22
Speaker 1: hundred onlookers. Fab five Freddy was enlisted to direct. He
12:26
Speaker 1: was perfect rapper, graffiti artist, all time mover shaker, and
12:30
Speaker 1: fastly becoming a hip hop icon. Fab was the first
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Speaker 1: host of YOMTV raps and had starred in Wild Style,
12:37
Speaker 1: the first true hip hop film, as well as appeared
12:40
Speaker 1: in Spike Lee's She's Got a Habit and Seminal Street
12:43
Speaker 1: Flick k New Jack City. He was name checked in
12:45
Speaker 1: a Blondie song and It Hung Out with Jean Michelle
12:47
Speaker 1: Basquet Dudead's Street Cred Despair, and now Fab was directing
12:51
Speaker 1: a video for the Hottest name in hip Hop. Snoop
12:54
Speaker 1: was stoked cut to the video shoot what was supposed
12:59
Speaker 1: to be a couple one hundred extras turned into a
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Speaker 1: thousand or so hustlers, pimps, hose and plain old hip
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Speaker 1: hop heads who showed up most ominous crips and bloods
13:08
Speaker 1: had made the scene, but it was a party from
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Speaker 1: the jump. The majority of the extras were pulling on
13:14
Speaker 1: forties by eight am, constantly jarred by the stop start
13:18
Speaker 1: nature of a video shoot and the tediousness of having
13:20
Speaker 1: to listen to the same song over and over again,
13:24
Speaker 1: and because both MTV and BEETS standards prevented the showing
13:28
Speaker 1: of any gang signs in any of their broadcast videos.
13:31
Speaker 1: Fab at a cut and start over again and again. Guys,
13:35
Speaker 1: I can see you. If you're fucking hands, you want
13:37
Speaker 1: to be on MTV or not, Let's do it again.
13:40
Speaker 1: Rolling the day went on, another take action, another couple
13:45
Speaker 1: hundred forties, no place to piss, rival crews, another take action, cot,
13:53
Speaker 1: more Mount liquor, more Indo sing song again. By the afternoon,
14:01
Speaker 1: the crowd of a thousand balloon to three thousand. It
14:03
Speaker 1: got hotter and the crowd got drunken. The street was restless,
14:06
Speaker 1: and in no time the riot broke out. While police
14:15
Speaker 1: got things under control. Of black mercedes cut through the
14:18
Speaker 1: crowd with authority stopping abruptly to pick up Dray and sweep.
14:23
Speaker 1: Suge Knight was at the wheel, sunglasses the Cosby sweater
14:27
Speaker 1: menace all over his grill. The three drove off, this
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Speaker 1: time untouched, watching the street violence stay incited shrink in
14:35
Speaker 1: the rear view mirrors. But the reality wasn't going anywhere.
14:39
Speaker 1: It was plain as day. No matter how high Snoop climbed,
14:42
Speaker 1: the gravity of the streets would always pull him back down.
14:46
Speaker 1: And that was cool. Snoop didn't mind. It was where
14:48
Speaker 1: he came from. Ever since he was a youth, he
14:51
Speaker 1: rode with the rolling twenty crips. The streets were his world.
14:54
Speaker 1: He was in no hurry to leave them behind. Despite
14:56
Speaker 1: his success at the record release already for Doggy Style.
15:01
Speaker 1: A month after the What's My Name video started dominating MTV,
15:04
Speaker 1: another riot broke out, this time on a yacht. The
15:08
Speaker 1: same streets that inspired him, the same streets that contributed
15:11
Speaker 1: to the rawness and authenticity of the music he created,
15:14
Speaker 1: the music that had made him a star. That street
15:17
Speaker 1: ethos was the same element that potentially sent Snoop to
15:20
Speaker 1: prison for twenty five to life. We'll be right back
15:26
Speaker 1: after this word word word. September eighth, nineteen ninety four,
15:33
Speaker 1: Snoop Doggie Dog aka Calvin Brotis aka Snoop aka the
15:38
Speaker 1: Double G, one of, if not the biggest name in
15:42
Speaker 1: all of hip hop, was busy avoiding his nerves backstage
15:45
Speaker 1: at the Universal Amphitheater last year. At the same event,
15:49
Speaker 1: after presenting an award alongside his mentor, Doctor Dre and
15:52
Speaker 1: his hero George Clinton, Snoop and his attorney went downtown
15:57
Speaker 1: and Snoop turned himself in a warrant was up for
16:00
Speaker 1: him for a murder beef, a beef that was now
16:03
Speaker 1: still a year later on the minds of all the fans, artists, press, paparazzi,
16:08
Speaker 1: and starfuckers who were contributing to the low din of
16:10
Speaker 1: sound penetrating the dressing room from the theater. Snoop waited
16:15
Speaker 1: without a shred of anxiety, laid back despite the fact
16:19
Speaker 1: that tonight would not be like any other night her usual.
16:23
Speaker 1: The nineteen ninety four MTV Video Music Awards aka the
16:27
Speaker 1: VMAs operated as a kind of culture catchall where old
16:31
Speaker 1: icons and upstart tastemakers get to play in the same sandbox,
16:35
Speaker 1: where various genres got to share a stage and audience,
16:38
Speaker 1: and depending on who you were talking about, either a
16:40
Speaker 1: hit off of a blunt or a last dance with
16:42
Speaker 1: Mary Jane from behind the curtain. Before taking the podium,
16:47
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley were conspiring to gross
16:50
Speaker 1: out makeout in front of a nationally televised audience. The
16:54
Speaker 1: recently departed Kirk Cobaine was paid tribute to Roseanne Barr
16:58
Speaker 1: hosted and miraculously wasn't a complete and total embarrassment. Bruce
17:02
Speaker 1: Springsteen bummed everyone out with the performance of the Streets
17:05
Speaker 1: of Philadelphia, and David Letterman flirted with Madonna, who didn't mind.
17:10
Speaker 1: There were twelve artists who performed, most of them Rock Arrowsmith,
17:14
Speaker 1: The Rolling Stones, Smashing Pumpkins, Green Day, Tom Petty and
17:17
Speaker 1: the Heartbreakers, Stone Temple, Pilots, and the aforementioned Boss Boys.
17:22
Speaker 1: To Men laid it on thick with their R and
17:24
Speaker 1: B ballad I'll Make Love to You. The Beastie Boys,
17:27
Speaker 1: once a more traditional hip hop group, were at the
17:29
Speaker 1: time expanding their already significant crossover success by recalling their
17:34
Speaker 1: hardcore roots. They brought the heat with the performance of
17:37
Speaker 1: their banger Sabotage, and that left Salt and Peppa and
17:40
Speaker 1: Snoop as the lone representatives of the hip hop genre.
17:44
Speaker 1: Salt and Peppa blasted through a medley of their biggest hits,
17:47
Speaker 1: Push It None of Your Business, What a Man? And
17:49
Speaker 1: the sex laden Shoot. Hip Hop and R and B
17:53
Speaker 1: might have been pushing rock off at the charts in
17:55
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety four, but pound for pound that night at
17:58
Speaker 1: the VMA's rock was the dominant genre on stage, but
18:02
Speaker 1: it was clear that by the early nineties, hip hop
18:05
Speaker 1: and rock were getting more and more comfortable hanging out.
18:08
Speaker 1: It started a couple of years earlier with Run DMC
18:11
Speaker 1: and Arrowsmith's remake of the Aerosmith classic Walked This Way
18:14
Speaker 1: from nineteen eighty six, a safe venture into the unknown
18:18
Speaker 1: by both artists. It was followed up by a more
18:21
Speaker 1: street inspired hardcore mashow from Anthrax and Public Enemy, who
18:26
Speaker 1: took pees bring the Noise and gave it new energy
18:29
Speaker 1: on the back of Scott Ian's thick guitar rists that
18:31
Speaker 1: somehow melded effortlessly with Hank Shockley's City Street Sirens soaked
18:36
Speaker 1: original track. The first three Lollapalooza lineups made great strides
18:41
Speaker 1: and bringing hip hop to the Alt Nation teen set,
18:44
Speaker 1: just as iced Tea was exposing his rap fan base
18:46
Speaker 1: to hardcore punk with his Body Cow project. The melding
18:50
Speaker 1: of these genres culminated in the soundtrack to the nineteen
18:53
Speaker 1: ninety three film Judgment Night Seattle proto Grungjow Fit Munhooney
18:57
Speaker 1: collaborated on a track with Thick Booty, Advocac Sir Mix
19:00
Speaker 1: a Lot Noise, Behemus, Dinosaur Junior paired up with Mister
19:04
Speaker 1: Doublina himself deal to Funky Homo Sapien, to say nothing
19:07
Speaker 1: of the slamming contributions between House of Pain and Helmet
19:10
Speaker 1: and the title track by Biohazard and Onyx. All of
19:14
Speaker 1: it made for essential teenage listening. In the early nineties,
19:18
Speaker 1: it was becoming clear hip hop was no longer fringe.
19:21
Speaker 1: It was, in fact in the process of infringing upon
19:24
Speaker 1: rock's dominance and becoming the more culturally significant of the
19:27
Speaker 1: two mainstream genres, a reality that was hard to fathom
19:30
Speaker 1: five years earlier at the nineteen eighty nine VMAs, where
19:34
Speaker 1: hip hop was repped by an out of shape Bobby
19:36
Speaker 1: Brown singing the theme to Ghostbusters two in a perpetually
19:40
Speaker 1: breathless tone look grumbling his way through his top ten
19:43
Speaker 1: hit wild Thing. By nineteen ninety four, hip hop had
19:47
Speaker 1: come a long way. Snoop knew it. As one of
19:50
Speaker 1: the biggest names in the genre, the stakes for his
19:52
Speaker 1: performance that night couldn't have been higher, to say nothing
19:55
Speaker 1: of the fact that his murder case could take him
19:57
Speaker 1: out of the rap game. Completely pleaded not guilty during
20:01
Speaker 1: a pre trial hearing in December of nineteen ninety three,
20:04
Speaker 1: and now with the trial looming, he understood that twenty
20:07
Speaker 1: five to life was a real possibility. So this performance mattered.
20:12
Speaker 1: The world was watching, and so is the Street Primetime
20:18
Speaker 1: the money slot between Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and
20:21
Speaker 1: Stone Temple Pilots, the audience was heavy on anticipation. Cindy Crawford,
20:26
Speaker 1: Tony Bennett, Chuck de and Flavor Flave, John Stewart, Ed
20:29
Speaker 1: Lover and the Other Doctor Dre Queen Latifa, Ben Stiller,
20:33
Speaker 1: and Dennis Leary all looked onto the stage with a
20:35
Speaker 1: mixture of awe, anxiety, and skepticism. When it was clear
20:39
Speaker 1: that this wasn't going to be an ordinary performance, the
20:43
Speaker 1: first notes of the piano hit, and then the sopranos
20:45
Speaker 1: and the gospel choir chime in. A preacher calls out
20:48
Speaker 1: a benediction, the Lord's prayer, and then rifts his way
20:52
Speaker 1: into a spoken wrap that is part Al Green, part
20:54
Speaker 1: Bobby Bird, and we come to the crossroads like Calvin Brotis.
20:59
Speaker 1: He preaches. The piano player picks the rhythm up, the
21:04
Speaker 1: gospel choir vamps. The preacher continues with the open casket
21:08
Speaker 1: in the middle of the stage, flanked by pall bear
21:10
Speaker 1: thug bodyguards. A procession of family and friends passed by
21:14
Speaker 1: the casket. Women fall to their knees in grief. The
21:17
Speaker 1: thugs help them along. The camera focuses on the casket itself.
21:21
Speaker 1: It's the street spilled into the church. It's the church
21:24
Speaker 1: spilled onto the stage. It's the Holy Ghost unloading on
21:27
Speaker 1: the audience with a loaded glock. And then the beat
21:33
Speaker 1: finally drops. The gospel choir loosens itself up into a
21:37
Speaker 1: club step, clapping on the beat, swaying in unison. The
21:41
Speaker 1: minor gong of hell is wrung out. Snoop's voice is
21:44
Speaker 1: moving through the verse, but from somewhere out of sight
21:47
Speaker 1: off stage, the camera fixes on the open casket. Just
21:51
Speaker 1: another street funeral, just another coffin the Devil from Snoop's
21:55
Speaker 1: Murder was the case. Short film appears on the screens
21:57
Speaker 1: above the stage. Snoop bargain with the gospel choir belts
22:04
Speaker 1: out the chorus. Snoop nails the response. Murder was the
22:08
Speaker 1: case that they gave me. A beam of light blasts
22:12
Speaker 1: from the coffin, and the white gloved undertaker shuts the lid.
22:15
Speaker 1: Snoop enters from stage left, cripped out to the max
22:18
Speaker 1: perm snarl, flannel clad in a wheelchair, being pushed to
22:22
Speaker 1: center stage by another thug. He's hobbled, but not for long.
22:27
Speaker 1: By the middle of the verse, he's on his feet.
22:29
Speaker 1: Once enfeebled, now full strength, and by the time the
22:32
Speaker 1: song ends, Snoop is standing at center stage defiant, I'm innocent,
22:37
Speaker 1: I'm innocent. The music goes silent, and the audience erupts.
22:43
Speaker 1: As dramatic as the performance was, it was nothing compared
22:46
Speaker 1: to the drama of the real life incident that inspired it.
23:08
Speaker 1: Snoop recognized the gun right away, if not the assailant.
23:12
Speaker 1: Out of the corner of his eye. He could tell
23:13
Speaker 1: it was a three eighties semi automatic, and thus its
23:16
Speaker 1: owner wasn't a real player and associated best. Real thugs
23:21
Speaker 1: preferred nine millimeters, specifically Glock nineteen's handheld widow Makers palm
23:26
Speaker 1: sized orphan generators. Fuck that pocket rocket jive. The three
23:30
Speaker 1: eighties were cheaper, had less recoil and thus less power.
23:33
Speaker 1: They were dainty by comparison. When you needed to kill
23:36
Speaker 1: a motherfucker for real, the Glock nineteen was your go to.
23:40
Speaker 1: But guns being guns, the assailant had Snoop's attention. Recognize
23:44
Speaker 1: whose turf you're on, and get the fuck out of
23:46
Speaker 1: this neighborhood. This is your first, last, and only warning.
23:51
Speaker 1: Snoop nodded slowly and kept his eyes focused on the
23:54
Speaker 1: asphalt gas station parking lot. The assailant had a final
23:58
Speaker 1: question in command for the young hip hop superstar, Well
24:03
Speaker 1: what the fuck are you waiting for? Bounce With that,
24:07
Speaker 1: Snoop put one foot in front of the other and
24:09
Speaker 1: glided back over the streets he depicted in his wraps
24:12
Speaker 1: back to his apartment in the Palms neighborhood just north
24:14
Speaker 1: of Englewood. Once safe inside, that peace was short lived.
24:19
Speaker 1: Snoop heart yelling from outside. Down on the street, Sewn Abrams'
24:23
Speaker 1: friend was getting into it loudly with some gangbangers, a
24:26
Speaker 1: local crew by yourself hustlers. Snoop could see it from
24:30
Speaker 1: his window on the second floor, clear as day. The
24:33
Speaker 1: three eighty strapped into the backside of the waistband on
24:36
Speaker 1: the thud they called a little smooth shit. Snoop separated
24:41
Speaker 1: his bodyguard mckimley Lee aka Mleak, from the leather couch
24:44
Speaker 1: and the video game he was playing, and the two
24:46
Speaker 1: of them bounded down the stairs and out onto the street.
24:51
Speaker 1: Perhaps it was the even odds of the dunkin's size
24:53
Speaker 1: of the leak. Whatever it was, the gang bangers beefing
24:56
Speaker 1: with Sean split fuck it. Snoop is late for the
24:59
Speaker 1: st anyway, he Sean and Malik jumped into Snoop's brand
25:03
Speaker 1: new jeep Cherokee and took off. Snoop was at the wheel,
25:07
Speaker 1: Sean in the back. Malie wrote, shock and Snooped little
25:10
Speaker 1: blund banged the volume on the console and took in
25:13
Speaker 1: the sounds of the Delphonics enemies. The slinky distorted guitar
25:17
Speaker 1: rose up out of the speakers and moved itself around
25:20
Speaker 1: the smoke from Snoop's blunt. The words were freaking him out.
25:25
Speaker 1: Snoop couldn't help but think about what he was going through.
25:28
Speaker 1: In the course of a few short months, he'd gone
25:31
Speaker 1: from an unknown street tough and long beach to having one,
25:33
Speaker 1: if not the most heavily anticipated debut albums for any
25:37
Speaker 1: artist of all time. And here he was getting guns
25:40
Speaker 1: stuck in his grill on routine trips to the gas
25:43
Speaker 1: station from munchies and shit was heavy, and so were
25:47
Speaker 1: the delphonics. They kept at it. The air blowing into
25:52
Speaker 1: the topless jeep felt good, his track was fucking weird,
25:55
Speaker 1: or maybe Snoop was just stone. He couldn't tell. Snoop
25:58
Speaker 1: felt just a slight of paranoia. Those dudes from out
26:02
Speaker 1: in front of the apartment, What the fuck is it
26:05
Speaker 1: going to be more beef? And the dude at the
26:07
Speaker 1: gas station with the pocket rocket. Snoop told Malik about it,
26:10
Speaker 1: but Malik was chill, seemingly unconcerned, watching the wheels go
26:15
Speaker 1: round in the passing cars. Snoop was rolling slow, laid back,
26:20
Speaker 1: his mind on his money, his money on his mind,
26:23
Speaker 1: and this jeep was cool and all. But Snoop is
26:25
Speaker 1: looking forward to the day when he could afford a
26:27
Speaker 1: real wind, a brand new rolls are pimped out refurbished
26:30
Speaker 1: sixty seven pontiac yellow like the color of Iceberg Slim's teeth.
26:36
Speaker 1: The thought of Iceberg Slim made him think of dolomite,
26:38
Speaker 1: and the thought of dolomite made him smile to himself.
26:41
Speaker 1: But then shit, the gang bangers from outside the apartment,
26:46
Speaker 1: out in the open, in plain sight, sitting at the
26:49
Speaker 1: pictic table in the palms park, right there by the tent.
26:52
Speaker 1: Snoop didn't think. He accelerated, rolled up on them, stopped
26:56
Speaker 1: the jeep. The gang bangers looked up from the sweaty
26:59
Speaker 1: Mexican food they're eating. One of them, Little Smooth aka
27:03
Speaker 1: Philip Balde Mariam stood up. Snoop and Malik had looked
27:07
Speaker 1: on their face as that said the same thing. What
27:09
Speaker 1: the fuck? Philip spoke out, I'm not trying to sweat
27:13
Speaker 1: you all, I'm just trying to let you know where
27:15
Speaker 1: you're at. Malik stood up in the topless jeep, towering
27:19
Speaker 1: over the Cherokee's windshield and staring with menace at Philip.
27:23
Speaker 1: Philip grew agitated and shouted out, oh what, I'm a
27:26
Speaker 1: punk now. Malik hit him back with a stern what
27:31
Speaker 1: Philip's friend Jason London, who was at the scene, later
27:34
Speaker 1: testified if that's when Malik pulled his pistol and took
27:36
Speaker 1: aim at Philip. Philip then, according to Malik Anyway, reached
27:40
Speaker 1: back for his three eighty tucked into his waistband. Malik
27:43
Speaker 1: caught the move, Snoop ducked, Malik fired from the jeep.
27:47
Speaker 1: Philip fell to the ground before he was able to draw,
27:49
Speaker 1: and Snoop in his crew. Snoop banked on the accelerator
27:52
Speaker 1: and get the hell out of there. He, Malik and
27:55
Speaker 1: Sean went into hiding. Philip Baldemariam went into the afterlife
28:00
Speaker 1: died on the scene, face down in the streets. Snoop
28:09
Speaker 1: gave himself up a couple days later, but only after
28:11
Speaker 1: the VMAs. Of course, he didn't end up going to
28:14
Speaker 1: trial until nineteen ninety five, and murder was indeed the
28:17
Speaker 1: case that they gave him, but a racially diverse jury
28:20
Speaker 1: could not convict him of that charge, and there was
28:23
Speaker 1: a great deal of debate around Snoop in Malik's claims
28:26
Speaker 1: of self defense, specifically that Philip will to Marryham, had
28:29
Speaker 1: a gun and was a threat to kill him. After
28:32
Speaker 1: some time at the trial, It was eventually discovered that
28:36
Speaker 1: Philip's friend Deschamp Joseph, who was also at the scene,
28:39
Speaker 1: hid the gun. Jason London, another one of Philip's friends
28:42
Speaker 1: who was there for the entire incident of Ham's Park,
28:44
Speaker 1: testified that yes, Philip was strapping, and yes his gun
28:48
Speaker 1: had been removed from the scene and hidden to protect him.
28:52
Speaker 1: It was also discovered that the LAPD had handled the
28:55
Speaker 1: case with incompetence shocker, having inadvertently destroyed Philip's clothing, bullet
29:00
Speaker 1: and shellcasings from the scene. When this was revealed, the
29:04
Speaker 1: jury could be seen in the courtroom visibly rolling their
29:06
Speaker 1: eyes and shaking their heads. Snoop and the Leak were
29:10
Speaker 1: eventually acquitted and in no time back on the streets.
29:13
Speaker 1: What did Snoop say? I'm innocent, I'm Jake Brennan in
29:19
Speaker 1: This is Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created by Yours Truly and
29:35
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29:38
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Speaker 1: The bed Don Man