Snoop Dogg — aka Snoopzilla currently for his 7 Days of Funk collaboration with Dam-Funk — was surprised by GQ’s comparison of TDE to Death Row Records. “They said what?” was Snoop’s initial reaction when VIBE asked about GQ’s comparison of TDE, the record label of rising hip-hop star and current GQ cover man Kendrick Lamar, to that of Death Row Records, the iconic ’90s West Coast rap label that helped launch gangsta rap and released several of Snoop’s early albums. Even hip-hop tastemakers generally agreed that GQ’s cover story on Kendrick Lamar read like “a Hip-Hop outsider trying to explain this new movement to other Hip-Hop outsiders.”
So, we asked Snoop if he thought TDE was the new Death Row Records. “No, they’re not the new Death Row,” Snoop deadpanned, “because TDE did it completely different than Death Row did it. Death Row did it with a gangsta approach.” The Doggfather breaks it down beautifully above.
