Albums I Wish Existed: Snoop Doggy Dogg

Friday, December 24, 2021

Snoop Doggy Dogg - Playin' 4 Keepz (1991)

Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr., known professionally as Snoop Dogg (previously Snoop Doggy Dogg and briefly Snoop Lion), was born on 20 October 1971, and shortly after graduating from high school at Long Beach Polytechnic High School in 1989, he was arrested for possession of cocaine, and for the next three years, was frequently incarcerated. With his two cousins Nate Dogg and Lil' ½ Dead, and friend Warren G, he recorded homemade tapes as the group 213, named after the area code of their native Long Beach at that time. One of his early solo freestyles over 'Hold On' by En Vogue was on a mixtape that fortuitously wound up with Dr. Dre, who was so impressed by the sample that he called Broadus to audition. When he began recording, he took the stage name Snoop Doggy Dogg, and together he and Dr. Dre began working on the theme song of the 1992 film 'Deep Cover', and then on Dr. Dre's debut solo album 'The Chronic'. He had in fact been recording for a while before that big break, and had even taped an album in 1991 for Future Shock Entertainment called 'Over The Counter', which was released as a cassette tape that year. It was originally 'Over The Counter', and not Dr. Dre's 'The Chronic', that was to be the debut album for both Snoop Doggy Dogg and the Death Row label, but the record was pulled off the production line and never had an official release, other than the cassette copies sold at swap-meets. This was due to the fact that Death Row did not have the financial capabilities to support itself as a legitimate record label in 1991, and as a result their distributors Priority Records, Sony Music and Time Warner were unable to legally release it onto the market. Around the same time Snoop also recorded some other demos, including a second version of 'Deep Cover', and another collaboration with Dr. Dre on 'Smoke On'. Only six tracks from 'Over he Counter' have ever surfaced online, but if you add those to some other pieces recorded at the same time we end up with an album that could have been released a full two years before his official debut release 'Doggystyle'. Whether it would have catapulted him to stardom like 'Doggystyle' did we'll never know, as those two years honing his craft probably gave that debut album the extra edge that helped it achieve the success that it did. However, it's interesting to be able to listen to these songs that were recorded when he was just starting out, and to hear the emergent talent that has kept him at the top of the rap scene for all these years.