Snoop Dogg praises Kendrick Lamar for uniting Los Angeles gangs
Music has always been capable of bringing people together regardless of their differences, and Snoop Dogg has given high praise to Kendrick Lamar after his recent concert, which ignored the divisions in LA gang life to unite an entire community.
In celebration of Juneteenth and Black Music Month, Lamar staged his free Ken and Friends: The Pop Out concert on June 19th of this year, which was only announced two weeks beforehand, and marked his first live performance since the explosion of his infamous ongoing feud with Drake.
A landmark moment in the modern history of West Coast hip-hop, Lamar brought several major guests along for the ride. While Snoop wasn’t one of them, his close friend and fellow elder statesman of rap Dr Dre was, introducing the headline act before he performed the diss track ‘Not Like Us’ five times in a row.
Dre has already praised Lamar for uniting Compton with the concert, and Snoop was similarly impressed. He may not have been present, but even watching from afar, he knew he was witnessing an important moment for the city, Los Angeles, and hip-hop at large.
“A lot of neighbourhoods have been uniting for a long time behind closed doors,” Snoop told Complex. “But what Kendrick did was, he united the whole city, based off him being a king. Taking this violent situation, which is a rap beef, and creating peace and giving the homies an opportunity to come on stage, to engage in his video, to be a part of his movement, and to also move like he moves.”
Elaborating on how Lamar forced everyone around him to up their game, he remarked that “if you’re going to moie with Kenrick, you got to move like Kendrick,” before saluting his ability to unite the masses. “He’s about peace. He’s about love,” Snoop continued. “He ain’t from no gang. He’s from a city full of gangs, and he united cities. So that’s what this was about.”
Snoop referred to the Pop Out gig as “a good move for the whole West Coast culture as far as rap is concerned because violence has always been a lead thing for us on our side.” From his perspective, Lamar should be “commended” for making peace out of violence.
With Dre and Snoop compelled to point out the positives of Lamar’s one-off show, it’s clear that it’ll be remembered as a potentially pivotal moment for the West Coast.