The one rapper Snoop Dogg praises for dissing him: “That shit was so hard”
It’s one thing to find yourself yet again engaged in a hip-hop feud. It’s another to have to reconcile with the diss track against you being an actual bop.
These were the conditions good old Snoop Dogg found himself in when listening to “Real Muthaphuckkin G’s,” Eazy-E‘s 1993 maleficent track towards him and Dr Dre. The most successful single of Eazy’s tracks as a solo artist – it charted on the Billboard Hot 100 and led an EP – it clearly wasn’t just enjoyed by Snoop, but by the public, too.
And decades after it was released, Snoop appeared on The Bootleg Kev Podcast to admit that not only is he a personal fan of the song, but he actively still listens to it, too. “I got a radio station on LITT Live called Cadillac Music,” Snoop explained. “Every day at about 1:30, 2:00, walk down the hall. Eazy-E, [Gangsta] Dresta and B.G. Knocc Out be playing, and that shit be knocking.”
“And you’ll hear me singing it. ‘Muthafuck Dre, muthafuck Snoop, muthafuck Death Row!’ That n*gga Eazy-E was on my head,” he said, laughing. “That shit was so hard.”
As one would expect, the seasoned rapper did not feel the same way at the time of release as he does today. “Fuck no!” he said. “Fuck them n*ggas! You don’t wanna give no n*gga credit when a n*gga dissing you, and we was on them n*ggas’ heads. We had “What Would U Do?”, we had “Dre Day”. We were busting them upside the head.
“But when they dropped that muthafucka, we felt that one,” he continued. “The other shit, we didn’t feel. But that muthafucka right there? Eazy-E was going in on a n*gga!”
Dre, Snoop said, saw it as a matter of business, but Snoop admitted he took it personally, and was taken aback at first by the track. “I was like, ‘Damn, I love Eazy. Why he going so hard on me?’ But then I had to think: look what you did to him, look what you said about him! I didn’t even get off to a good start with somebody that I really loved.”
“Real Muthaphuckkin Gs” remains a definitive diss track across the genre even today, and is frequently listed among the greatest and most ruthless examples of its kind. More of a reaction than an action, it was Eazy-E’s direct response to Dr. Dre’s diss towards him on his album The Chronic.
After NWA split, Dre left Ruthless Records, and accused Eazy of shady contracts. Eazy shot back with venom, laughing at Dre for wearing makeup in his early electro-funk days and directly questioning his “gangsta” image. The track flipped Dre’s own sound against him by using and manipulating Dre-like production and icy insults.
And this is where Snoop enters the picture. As Dre’s closest ally during the NWA fallout, and his public and personal breakout artist of the scene, Snoop is directly targeted by Eazy, calling him the producer’s sidekick and also questioning his street credibility and independence. Snoop Dogg is depicted as dependent upon Dre, finding home the warmth and shadow of Dre’s machine, rather than earning respect by himself.
Over 30 years later, it’s safe to say Snoop’s found his way. A way that has seen the rapper listening to his own diss track. Touching, really.