According to Snoop Dogg, his now-infamous meeting he had in the 1990s with Dionne Warwick wasn’t just about the iconic singer getting mad at him for using the word “b—h” in his songs. It was more about “respect” and the difference between two eras of the music industry.
“It was more about, you know, can we make music that was rated G?” Snoop Dogg explained to Jimmy Kimmel on Wednesday night. “And we were trying to explain it to her, we was making it G.”
Last January, CNN’s documentary “Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over” dove into the surprising meeting. The rapper recalled being invited to the now 83-year-old singer’s house along with several other ’90s rappers and major names from Death Row Records. In the film, Snoop admitted that he felt “scared and shook up” at the time.
“We’re powerful right now, but she’s been powerful forever. Thirty-some years in the game, in the big home with a lot of money and success,” the rapper said in the doc, according to Billboard.
The “Drop It Like It’s Hot” and “Gin & Juice” rapper spilled more about the meeting with Kimmel, explaining that former Death Row Records CEO Suge Knight messed with Warwick “for like four hours.” According to Snoop, the music executive kept telling Warwick that they were “five minutes” away and “right around the corner” when they weren’t.
“He was too gangsta,” Snoop explained. “You see what I’m saying? You’re going into a lady’s house who’s so respected, you don’t want to put your gangsta against that respect.”
At the time, the rapper admitted he didn’t understand that meeting. Now he sees that Warwick came from a music-making era “where she feels like when you make music, you’re supposed to make a message and say the right thing.” With time, his opinion about the encounter has changed.
“I feel like when she said it at the time, I didn’t understand it and didn’t respect it. But if you look at my career now I believe that I got it,” Snoop said. “I’ve grown into the man that I was supposed to be, that she wanted me to be at the time.”
