There’s much about Snoop Dogg that remains iconic. The unique rapper’s flow is uncanny, while his costuming and continuously smoky vision can also be bundled into his legendary status. But, above all else, the reason Snoop found fame was his great vocal delivery. It came through from the very first moments too.
We are dipping into the Hip Hop Hero archives to pick out one of Snoop’s classic tracks and listen to it in a brand new way. By revisiting the acapella version of the track, we get to hear everything that made Snoop a hot property in the 1990s. Below, we’ve got the isolated vocals for Snoop Dogg song ‘What’s My Name?’.
The classic track was born out of Snoop’s most enduring collaborator, Dr Dre. In the documentary The Defiant Ones, Snoop Dogg revealed that he initially thought it was a prank when, in 1992, he received the call from Dre asking them to work together. Snoop even hung up on the NWA man but, after Dre called back, he accepted that this was a reality and he had been picked from obscurity to work under the stewardship of Dre. The two remain close today and headlined Coachella Festival together back in 2012.
Snoop previously said about his former mentor: “[Dre] showed me how to find me so that way when I stepped away from him I was able to grow and continue to be me and always keep that love for him to where we always got that open, close relationship where there’s never an argument between me and him.”
The love-in is reciprocal with Dre also on record as saying: “Snoop is always there for me, ready to work, and constantly motivating and pushing me and making me believe I could do it. I mean, I could always hear his voice in my head. “I cannot imagine where I’d be in my life if I had not collaborated with Snoop.”
However, their first connection came back in 1993 when Dre jumped on the new Snoop Dogg album to produce the record. It has since become one of the defining albums of hip hop history. But, on this clip, you won’t hear any of those nuances as Dre’s beats are stripped out and Snoop’s vocals are amplified.
Listen to Snoop Dogg’s isolated vocal for ‘What’s My Name?’ below.
