I remember like it was yesterday. It was 1992. I was on my living room couch, waiting for my cousin, Rabb Love, to come pick me up, so we could go to Liberty City and cop some weed. It was a Saturday, around seven P.M. I was watching a repeat of Rap City from the day before. The phone rang. It was Rabb telling me he was leaving his house, he'd be by my place in fifteen minutes. But I wasn't paying attention. Instead, I was engrossed by the video on the screen. It was Dr. Dre's new video, the title song from the soundtrack of the movie, Deep Cover. It wasn't Dre who had me fascinated. It was the long-faced skinny brother I'd never seen before who he had rapping with him.

   "Man," I told Rabb, "It's this new nigga name Snoopy from Long Beach about to put Ice Cube out of business."

   "You bullshittin'," my cuz replied.

   "Dog, wait 'til you see this video."

   It seems strange talking about Snoop Dogg in 2008, because he's such an ingrained part of the global pop culture landscape. But when he first came out, he was a really big deal. Snoop was the first authentic street cat to really make it big in the rap game.

   Of course hip hop was born in the streets. Africa Bambaataa used to run in a gang. Run DMC's DJ, the late Jammaster Jay, was a notorious bully in Hollis Queens. Slick Rick, Just-Ice, Ice-T, KRS-One, all these dudes were legitimately street. But Snoop Doggy Dogg was different. He LITERALLY jumped out of a 4 year stretch in the L.A. County jail on a drug charge, onto a video with Dr. Dre, and into America's living rooms.

   The fact that Snoop was legitimately street was an enormous part of his appeal. I wasn't born and raised in the 'hood, but by the early 90's, I'd been through some things on the street. Like I've stated before in this series, those were those years... those crack years, where everybody was trying to get money. If you were out in the street, the way Snoop broke it down sounded REAL. And if you weren't in the street, Snoop gave you a realistic idea of what was going on. He broke it down for you, from the hustling, to the kickin' it with the homies, to the Crippin', to the county... he gave you the whole game. He never understated it, nor did he exaggerate. He gave it to you just like it was.

   Of course that was only part of Snoop's appeal. He also brought a whole new style to the hip hop game: the flannel shirts, the Dickeys, the Chuck Taylors... the way he moved when he spit his flows, the slang, the incongruously country L.A. accent, and Snoop's own inimitable voice itself. Snoop hit not just rap music, but POP music like a nuclear bomb.

   In 1993, Dre dropped The Chronic album, which he might as well have called, Snoop Doggy Dogg! I never bought The Chronic. Not because I didn't like it- hell, like probably 20% of the population between the ages of 32 and 42, I know every word on that album by heart. I never bought The Chronic because I never HAD to! Everybody else had it!

   Driving down the street, the car next to you was bumping The Chronic. Any car you rode in, The Chronic was playing. Any party you went to, The Chronic was playing. Call a chick up on the phone, you hear The Chronic in the background. The Chronic was everywhere. Some people kept The Chronic in their tape deck- on auto reverse- literally until Doggystyle came out.

   I got a story about that one, too. The anticipation for Doggystyle was so great that not only was the album shipped platinum, but you had to put your name on a waiting list to get it. My homeboy, Alix, was one of the people who got on the waiting list. 12 midnight on Thursday, we went to the record store to get Doggystyle, cause Alix wanted to be the first person in South Florida to have it. When we got to the record store, there was a line going around the block. 

   So much for Alix being the first.

   Finally, after about an hour wait, Alix got his Doggystyle cassette. He had a Honda Prelude at that time, with all kinds of get down in the back. The first song, "Shiznit", came on. It was cool. Some mellow head bop shit. Nothing extraordinary, but far from disappointing. Between "Shiznit" and the next song, they had this filler of a dude at a party taking a piss... the way the filler came in just set you up. You just knew something BIG was about to happen next.

   Then "Gin and Juice" came on.

   I bullshit you not, Alix stopped the car, and we played that song back to back about ten times at full volume while we drank quarts, wildin' out in this parking lot. It wasn't until two weeks later that we finally got around to listening to the rest of the album.

   As for my prediction that Snoop would put Ice Cube out of business... in a way I was right. Once Snoop came out, Cube kind off backed off the gangsta lyrics, and delved more into the political. Think about it- when was the last time you heard Cube spit some "Gangsta, Gangsta", or " My Summer Vacation" type shit?

   What I didn't foresee, what I don't think anyone foresaw, was how Snoop's emergence on the scene would totally reshape the template for what an emcee was supposed to be for the next decade and a half. Prior to Snoop, you could be a Kwame and get on. You could be De La Soul, The Pharcyde, or A Tribe Called Quest and get .. Snoop Doggy Dogg came out, and sold all those goddamn records, everybody went out looking for the next Snoop Doggy Dogg. It wasn't enough to be a good rapper anymore, you had to be a villain. You couldn't be clean cut, like Will Smith, and rap. You had to be hard, and rap about the shit you lived through. Snoop said Murda Was the Case, then Snoop went and caught a murder case!

   The line between real life and art had always been blurry. Once Snoop hit the scene, it became altogether invisible. From 1993 to 1995, Snoop was The Undisputed Champ of Rap Music.

   Now that's not to say there wasn't a lot of dope music coming out back then, cause there was. '93 also saw Tribe Called Quest drop their masterpiece, Midnight Marauders. In 1994, we were introduced to the 8 man team from Shaolin, the Wu Tang Clan. '94 also introduced us to Biggie Smalls, who came through blasting with "Juicy", and "Big Poppa" off his Ready to Die album, setting the stage for his future reign as Undisputed Champ. And I'd be remiss if I neglected to mention that 1994 was the year OutKast dropped Southenplayalisticadillacmusic. In fact, 1994 ws the first- AND LAST- year that independent labels would sell more records than the majors.

   All in all, it was a great time for hip hop, and for rap music. But big changes were on the horizon.

TO BE CONTINUED...