Snoop Dogg’s five favourite Snoop Dogg songs: “They not changing my shit”
Snoop Dogg‘s catalogue is so deep that picking his five favourite songs is a difficult task. The Long Beach legend is about to release his 20th studio album, Missionary, in December, and that’s not even counting his collaborative projects.
Thankfully, Snoop himself was given the task of naming his top five songs so we don’t have to. Speaking to Big Boy, he kicked off his list in style by naming his Dr Dre collaboration ‘Nuthin’ But a ‘G’ Thang’ as one of his best records. As one of the classic rap songs of the ’90s and a pillar in West Coast hip-hop, it’s hard to argue against it.
“I would definitely have ‘G Thang’ in it because of the place that I wrote it from and the staying power of it all,” he said. “Compton and Long Beach coming together for the first time, the birth of Death Row Records, the foundation of this West Coast sound of the’ 90s, and just to prove that I can write a song for me and Dr. Dre and be a writer, not just be an artist. So I love that record right there, for sure in the top five.”
For his next pick, he switched things up from a guest appearance to his own song, ‘Gin and Juice‘, one of the biggest tracks on 1993’s Doggystyle album. For Snoop Dogg, the Grammy-nominated record makes the cut due to its influence across the music industry to this day, being incorporated into many other genres in popular music.
“‘Gin and Juice’ because this record has been made like five or six different times by other genres,” he said. “Like, if you can make a fucking song that starts off as hip-hop and you hear it in country, EDM, jazz, pop. I’ve heard multiple versions of ‘Gin and Juice’ and this fucks me up that they still use my lyrics.
“They not changing my shit – they saying my shit to this rock music or country music. So I’m looking at my shit like, ‘Damn, I sample music from the ’70s. Muthafuckas are sampling my music?’ That’s gotta be a top five, hands down.”
A top five list wouldn’t be complete without one of his many collaborations with Pharrell, with Snoop Dogg picking ‘Drop It Like It’s Hot’ because it was his first single to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100. For his fourth selection, Snoop went with the entirety of his 2018 gospel album Bible of Love, calling it his “greatest work.”
No matter how much he wanted to name a deep cut, ‘Who Am I (What’s My Name)?‘ was just too much of a classic to deny. Snoop Dogg can’t help but appreciate the reaction from a crowd when the song comes on, whether that’s singing or dancing to it.
“I want some deep shit, like something real deep. Nah, I can’t front. ‘What’s My Name’ is the shit,” he said. “I just love the way it makes people feel when they hear it. The way they sing ‘Snoop Doggy Dogg,’ it’s just something about that record that just feels good. You smile when it comes on.”