Who is this Snoop Lion character and what does it mean for Snoop Dogg? This is basically what GQ magazine set out to find out in their feature story on the West Coast rap legend turned Rastafarian in its January 2013 issue.
In the feature, GQ’s Drew Magary basically tags along with Snoop as he takes the writer on an adventure that involves smoking copious amounts of weed. In other words, Snoop’s daily routine. However, we do get some further insight into the “Deep Cover” rapper being self-aware of his age and the karma that he puts out there.
“As you become a man, you start having kids and living. You put the guns away, and your music becomes Hey, I’m with my kid and I’m living now… as opposed to F-ck that—I’ll shoot you on sight. …If I focus on death, it’s going to come closer than what it’s supposed to be,” Snoop told GQ. “You’ll become it. I’ll say it to my friends: Write songs about being shot at and then the sh-t happens. And I don’t want to dwell on it long, but I wrote a song called ‘Murder Was the Case,’ and I never had a murder case in my life. But when that song came out, I had a real murder case.”
There is also the question of offering up weed to his children.
“It’s not that I would ever push weed on our kids,” says Snoop, who has three children, ranging in age from 12 to 18, “but if they wanted to, I would love to show them how, the right way, so that way they won’t get nothing put in their sh-t or overdose or trying some sh-t that ain’t clean.”
The former Death Row rapper practices what he preaches since he was spotted toking up with his son Corde “Spanky Danky” Broadus back in September 2012.
Snoop’s Reincarnation Reggae album, which will be produced by Diplo and Major Lazer and released via a new deal the rapper inked with RCA Records, is due out in early 2013. Read the full GQ feature story, titled ‘The Lion Smokes Tonight,’ right here. Check out some flicks of Snoop, including one wear he rocks a Burberry shower cap, in the gallery.
Photos: Peggy Sirota / GQ
