Snoop Dogg - Soul Plane

SNOOP DOGG FLIES HIGH IN SOUL PLANE

Snoop Dogg/Soul Plane Interview by Paul Fischer in Los Angeles.

Snoop Dogg arrives appropriately dressed with his 'doggie' gold chain aroundhis neck. Perennially cool and softly spoken, Snoop is determined to betaken more seriously as a major Hollywood player, yet doesn't insist onplaying the Hollywood PR game. The press junket's tardiness for Soul Plane,in which he plays a stoned airline pilot in the ensemble farce, is blamed onSnoop's overly laid back attitude. But once he goes, there's no stopping therapper and ex-criminal resolutely interested in changing whatever perceptionthe public may have of him. There is Snoop Dogg the father, who concedesthat he recognises something of himself in his son. "Whenever he takes apicture, he always looks to the side and he's like funny like I am, rappin'and telling jokes," Snoop says, smilingly. "My daughter is smart like I amand understands things.'Dad, why you be in the movies playing a pimp? What'sa pimp do right there, daddy? Why you get killed?' I mean, it's likequestions like that. 'Why are you asking me that? How do you know this?' SoI see a little bit of me in all of my kids. At the same time, I can't hideanything from them because I'm out there. I can't say, 'Don't watch this.Don't do this or that.' I'd rather them see it with me so that they can askme the questions and I can give them the understanding. That's the Americathat I understand. You have to parent your kids. It ain't my job to parentyour kids. Now I am a role model and I'm going to give them positive thingsto look up to, but I can't parent your kids. That's your job."

And Snoop insists that he has never attempted to hide his drug-filled pastfrom his children. "My kids know everything about me, ins and outs, frontsand tops and bottoms. It ain't no puzzle. It ain't no secret. My oldest son,when he was born, was like my right hand and in the studio everyday with me.He still remembers Tupac. It was like things like that, and when I was inthe studio with Death Row, I smoked weed everyday, everyday, not sometimes,but everyday and my son was right there with me. He'd always say, 'Superfly.Daddy, don't smoke.' We'd take him out of the room. After a while, when Idid stop smoking, I said, 'You remember when you used to tell me not tosmoke?' It really hit me in my heart to see that my influence is reallydetrimental to my kids. So I focus on my house first, and if I'm doing rightby my house I don't worry about the outside", insists the actor.

But Snoop is equally determined to show what he can muster on screen, fromthe recent Starsky and Hutch to the farcical Soul Plane, where he plays acharacter resembling the real Dogg, a fact that he doesn't dispute. "I thinkthat Captain Mac [in Soul Plane] is more like Snoop Dogg's twin brother, sohe's close to me as far as my fans being able to relate to me in a SnoopDogg manner. So I think that my fans want to see me playing a role where I'mcool." Snoop says that the approaches in playing Huggy Bear in Starsky andHutch, was very different to thew way he approached Soul Plane. "'Starskyand Hutch' took a little more studying and figuring out who Huggy was, goingback to the '70's and trying to figure out the lingo and the look. SoulPlane is more like today. So it's whatever I say and however I want CaptainMac to be, because he's today and a fictional character in '04." One may notexpect a film like Soul Plane to be controversial, but there are some herein the Black community concerned at the way the film portraysAfrican-Americans, reinforcing stereotypes. Snoop is both unconcerned andunapologetic. "I'm taking my kids to the premiere of the show to show youhow I'm concerned with it," Dogg says laughingly. "I'm not concerned with itand I don't think that people should be concerned with the imagery. Whatthey should be concerned with is the fact that a lot of Black people havejobs from this movie and this is a comedy, not reality. It's not trying tomake you go out there and start your own airline and do this or do that, butto make people laugh and to bring people up. We're poking fun at a lot ofthings that make you sad, make you cry, make you nervous and make you weary,but we're having fun with it. It's like when Black America does it, all theold Black folks have something to say and that shit gets on my nerves. Whenwhite boys make movies like this with an all white cast and they're crackingjokes and doing their thing, no one ever says nothing, but soon as you getsix or seven niggers together in a movie and we're talking about each otherand having fun, it's a problem. Stand-up comedians do it their whole life.Eddie Murphy, Richard Pryor and Redd Foxx did it. We're only doing what wewere taught and what we know. In the Black community, it's cool to bag oneach other and talk about each other; that's what the fuck we do. We call itbagging on each other, and my whole life that's how I learned to be comedicand how I got my humour and my timing. So, how are you going to take ourculture away from us and say that we're bringing down the imagery? We'rebringing up the imagery, by giving kids something to look up to. Me, SnoopDogg, an ex-gang member, ex-drug dealer, was on trial for murder and now I'mdoing movies, being positive, coaching kids, doing what's right and that'swhat the fuck matters."

Snoop is putting his money where his mouth is, by helping to start afootball league catering for minorities living in specific urban areas."Right now, it costs three hundred dollars for one kid to play. So imagineif you have a single parent with three kids in the house at $300 a kid andthe rent costs $700.What do you think is going to happen? One might play. Three might not play.Now if they don't play, guess how much it costs to join a gang? Nothing.Guess how much it costs to sell drugs? Nothing. So all of that is rightthere. They have accessibility. So what I'm trying to do is erase that andgive them something that's for free. It's not for free though because toplay on my football team, you have to have good grades. You have to have atleast a 2.0 GPA. So that's what makes you take the money away. If your gradepoint average is 2.0, you don't have to pay. The league will support you andpay for you to play because it's educational and it's fun at the same time."

When Snoop is not going out of his way to help his community, he isestablishing himself on the silver screen, far from the tumultuous past hehas comes to terms with. Dogg, who made his film debut in 1998's Half Baked,says that acting has come easy to him over the years, and is a naturalparallel to his music. It's complimentary. Even when I was a kid in church,my momma used to make me do plays. Which I used to hate. I'd get up thereand be like, 'I'm Benjamin Baniker.' Then do Easter plays and Christmasplays. 'Get up there and sing. You better sing.' I'm up there singingscared, nervous with a little tight suit on, but it brought out who I am. Itshowed me how to have charisma and presence, how to work the crowd, how tolook people in the eyes and how to be who I am right now," Snoop saysemphatically.

Snoop says that his dream role is that of serial killer "because of HannibalLector. I just love him. There's just something about the serial killer thatyou love, just something about those characters where you see me transforminto someone that I'm not. That's so far away from me. You wouldn't think ofSnoop Dogg as raping girls and killing them. So that's a character to methat's unbelievable for me to play, but it's like if I could really pullthat off it could really show that I'm doing what I'm doing." And he isstill determined to work with Halle Berry, who is developing Foxxy Brown forMGM as we speak. "Really? The same people doing this movie? Ain't that abitch?!"


SOUL PLANE OPENS LATER THIS YEAR.