DISGRACELAND - Snoop Doggy Dogg: Murder Was The Case

Episode Date: March 26, 2019

Snoop Dogg, (AKA Calvin Broadus) has worn many hats: inmate, pimp, Martha Stewart’s BFF. In 1994, Snoop was the biggest name in hip hop, yet his career was about to be derailed just as it was taking off due to the murder of Philip Woldemariam, a murder that Snoop was being charged with. The streets that made Snoop, the streets he came up on and that infiltrated the raps he made and the smooth style he patented, were the very same streets he could not leave behind. To see the full list of contributors, see the show notes at www.disgracelandpod.com. This episode was originally published on March 26, 2019. To listen to Disgraceland ad free and get access to a monthly exclusive episode, weekly bonus content and more, become a Disgraceland All Access member at disgracelandpod.com/membership. Follow Jake and DISGRACELAND: Instagram YouTube X (formerly Twitter)  Facebook Fan Group TikTok  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is exactly right. Double Elvis. Disgrace Land is a production of Double Elvis. The stories about Snoop Doggy Dog are insane. He was a member of the infamous Roland 20 Cripps Street Gang. He went to jail for cocaine possession. He became a pimp after becoming a worldwide hip-hop star. To this day, he smokes copious amounts of the chronic,

even claiming to have gotten high in the bathroom of the White House back in 2015. He coaches youth football, is BFFs with Martha Stewart, and depending on who you talk to is one of the most talented rappers of all time. He is iconic, known the world over by the one-syllable nickname as Mama gave him, Snoop. Though he now occupies coveted real estate on Hollywood Boulevard, in the form of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Snoop came up on different streets, the gang-torn streets of Long Beach, California, streets that despite his stardom, he'd never really be able to leave behind. streets that would nearly derail this career. But despite all that noise, or perhaps because of it,

Snoop made great music. That music you heard at the top of the show, that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my Melotron called Slow Street Basaklav BK1. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to exhale, shoot, shoot by Whitney Houston. And why would I play you that specific slice

of uninspired Betty Everbiting Cheese could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on November 27, 1995, and that was the day that Snoop Doggy Dog, a K.A. the Dogged Dog, entered a Los Angeles Superior courtroom to defend himself against the first-degree murder charge that would potentially send him to prison for the rest of his life.

On this episode, Slow Bossa, Stolen Cheese, The Streets, a murder case in Snoop Dog. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is described. Graceland. As far back as Snoop could remember, he always wanted to be a pimp. Snoop grew up as Calvin Brodus Jr. in Long Beach, California, east side. But up by Wrigley, near the PCH, the prostitutes were owned free. It was pimplat. The neighborhood was a remnant of what had become of Long Beach's notorious oceanfront slum known as the jungle. By the 1980s and 1990s, the sailors and dock workers from earlier in the century had been replaced by the gangbangers

and traveling businessman. And the pimps ruled it all in style. As a kid, Snoop vibed on Iceberg Slim, whose autobiography Pimp, the story of my life, brought Pimp in out of the shadows and onto bookshelves alongside books by black power icons like Malcolm X and Eldridge Cleaver. A young Snoop wasn't the only one enthralled by Pimp culture.

70s filmmakers couldn't put the Pimps down either. Harvey Kitell's sport from taxi driver and Rudy Ray Moore's Dolomite gave young kids in the 70s, a glamorized view into the seedy underbelly of the street. Dolomite's comedic blend on black exploitation was particularly compelling. Dolomite is my name, and fucking up motherfuckers is my game. I'm Dolomite. I'm the one that killed Monday, whipped Tuesday, put Wednesday in the hospital, called up Thursday to tell Friday not to bury Saturday on a Sunday. I'm the one. I'm the one who had the elephant roosted in trees and all the

ants wearing BVDs. These characters and these films were part of the hood curricul. for Snoop. Years later, after becoming a hip-hop sensation, Snoop would try his hand to pimping for real. He had at least two women going at all times, sometimes as many as 10, all in various hotel rooms that he'd have booked adjacent whatever hotel suite he was staying in while on the road back in 2003. His clients were entertainers and athletes, discerning clientele, who could afford the services of Snoop's so-called hose and also keep a secret. Snoop couldn't believe the money he was generating. Not that he needed. did. By this time, Snoop was one of the biggest stars in entertainment. It has experienced pimping,

along with his love for Dolomite, would eventually inform his later performance in 2004's Starsky and Hodge's Huggie Bear, the pimped out underworld contact for Ben Stiller's Starsky and Owen Wilson's Hutch. Snoop took the streets he came up on into the mainstream and used them to turn himself into one of the most recognizable stars in the world. His star shot out of the gangster rap scene, a scene that truly began its ascent in 1992, after its biggest group, Compton's NWA, had splintered. That year, within a month of each other, two of NWA's biggest stars released what would become

two of gangster rap's most enduring musical statements. Ice Cubes the Predator and Dr. Dre's The Cromic. Both albums are, in a word, great. Ice Cubes The Predator is hard, mean, unflinching, and unforgiving. It picks up where NWA's, fuck the police left off and doesn't look back. In a way, it's what we expected from Cube at the time, a no-holds barred assessment of life on the L.A. streets,

streets where you could still smell the burning embers of the L.A. riots from six months earlier. Dr. Dre's the chronic, on the other hand, wasn't necessarily what the world was expecting. It's raw and in its own way an unflinching look at life on Compton streets, but straight up, the chronic is a party record. Dre threw George Clinton's sink at the project, and the result was nothing short of jaw-dropping. The first 15 seconds on the album are gripping.

Trey's brief play and spoken dedication is the first thing you hear. Then, welcome to death row. After that, a harsh clanging of a prison cell door being slammed shut. Then, in an instant, the live lightness to the sound of a last poet's vocal sample. A raspy, slack-jawed voice chimes in, like we always do about this time. A second later, a boisterous, ha-ha! The beat drops, it's big, and so is the synth. Dre's patented Compton whistle.

And then, that voice. Yeah, nine deuce, death roll records, creeping while you're sleeping, and you're off. Off on some trip you've never been off onto before. That new voice is taking you for a ride, and you're in the back seat, head back, top down, the smell of herb everywhere. And the voice is transcended, new, fresh, largely unknown. It's Dre's record, but this young pup named Snoop is owning it from the outset,

announcing his arrival with authority. And Dre, with the type of confidence most artists can only dream of, has the sand to let this newbie hijack his mothership and let him ride straight to number three on the Billboard charts. The record is a banger, a crossover success for hip-hop that up to that point was unimaginable. Dub, Gang's Delight, the record was unavoidable through late 92 and 93. Black kids, white kids, high school. kids, college kids, and adults with ears everywhere get hooked on The Chronic, and by extension, hooked on Snoop Dog as well. Of the 16 tracks in the Chronic, Snoop is on 11, and he shine.

To call it his breakout is an understatement. His laid-back flow evoked Rapp's earlier storytellers like Slick or Too Short, but it's otherwise totally unique, unlike any voice performed, and the lyrics, all gangster. The Chronic would go on to be certified Triple Platin, 3 million records. And the world wanted more, more Drey, but also more Snoop. So when Snoop's debut album, Doggy Style, was released the following year. It debuted at number one on the Billboard charts. A first ever for a debut artist album. Doggy Style, along with its follow-up, The Dogfather, both sold in the multi-millions.

Snoop, whose style and delivery were instantly iconic to say nothing of being recognizable was a mainstay on MTV and on magazine covers. He was, by any measure, a success. Throughout the 90s and early 2000s, Snoop's notoriety and fame rose. Money wasn't an issue. So when he decided to start pimping in 2003, again, it wasn't about the money.

It was, as Snoop said, quote, about the fascination of being a pimp. I could fire a bitch. Fuck a bitch. City to city, titty to titty, hotel room to hotel room, athlete to athlete, entertainer to entertainer.

Snoop had channeled his down and dirty dolomite, his inner iceberg slim, and had become, for a brief period only, his childhood fantasy. He'd come up from the street and was proudly, openly, taking the street with him to ride shotgun alongside his fame and success. Two things in Snoop's life, but only a few years earlier, were far from certain. Jimmy Ivan was losing his shit. The record was supposed to be delivered weeks ago, and it wasn't. The genius, Dr. Dre, who was producing his protege, Snoop's debut album Doggy Style needed more time. Iveen, founder, chairman, and CEO of Interscope Records,

had shelled out $10 million in financing and distribution to death row records. The label was run by Blood Street Gang affiliate Shug Knight, so Yivine couldn't exactly intimidate his artist to deliver. But he had no problem letting all parties concern know that he was incensed. From Ayvian's perspective, Snoop, Drey, and Shug had had more than enough time to deliver. but all he was hearing about was delay after delay. By comparison, Drey's chronic sessions had been focused, despite the fact that Drey produced the record of Missa Raging Studio Party.

But the environment surrounding the creation of Doggy Style was an even bigger party, and sort of like doggy style itself, brimming with hedonism, indosmokes, sex, gin, juice, and the occasional eruption of violence. It was all too much this time around, proving to be a distraction for the otherwise hyper-focused Dr. Drey. And so the album was delayed, but Iveen wasn't that worried. He knew what to do. Push, hard, overpromised, and somehow eventually delivered.

Sure enough, the delay of the completed record, an issue that at one point seemed like an epic problem proved itself to be a blessing in disguise. The longer the album went undelivered to record stores, the more anticipation built. And not just in the press. In high school corridors and on the street, kids were lining up and camping out at their local TOW Records and Sam Goody, hoping against hope that that would be the day that Snoop's record would be released and ready for them to purchase. The anticipation in the music industry was legit. To satiate fans before the full album was ready, I even prepped the release

of the single Who Am I? What's My Name? And that meant they needed a video. They decided to shoot one of the performance segments on the corner of the Pacific Coast Highway of Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, the location of Long Beach's legendary VIP records. Snoop would hold cord on the roof of the building and hype up a street-level crowd of a couple hundred onlookers. Fab Five Freddy was enlisted to direct. He was perfect. rapper, graffiti artist, all-time mover, shaker, and fastly becoming a hip-hop icon. Fabb was the first host of YoMTV Raps and had starred in Wild Style, the first true hip-hop film, as well as appeared in Spike Lee's She's Got Have It and Seminole Street Flick New Jack City. He was name-checked in a blondeie song and had hung out

Jean-Michel Baskett. Dude had street cred to spare, and now Fabb was directing a video for the hottest name in hip-hop. Snoop was stoked. Cut to the video shoot. What was supposed to be a couple hundred extras turned into a thousand or so hustlers,

pimps, hoes, and plain old hip-hop heads who'd showed up. Most ominously, crips, and bloods had made the scene. But it was a party from the jump. The majority of the extras were pulling on 40s by 8 a.m. constantly jarred by the stop-start nature of a video shoot and the tediousness of having to listen to the same song over and over again. And because both MTV and BET standards

prevented the showing of any gang signs in any other broadcast videos, fab at a cut and start over again and again. Guys, I can see your fucking hands. You want to be on MTV or not? Let's do it again. Rolling. The day went on. Another take. Action. Another couple hundred 40s.

No place to piss. Rival crews. Another take. Action. Cut. More malt liquor. More Indo. It's a fucking song again?

By the afternoon, the crowd of a thousand ballooned to 3,000. It got hotter, and the crowd got drunker. The street was restless, and in no time, the riot broke out. While police got things under control, a black Mercedes cut through the crowd with authority, stopping abruptly to pick up drain. in Snoop. Shug Knight was at the wheel, sunglasses, Cosby sweater, menace, all over his grill. The three drove off, this time untouched, watching the street violence day incited shrink in the rearview mirrors. But the reality wasn't going anywhere. It was plain as day. No matter how

high Snoop climbed, the gravity of the streets would always pull him back down. That was cool. Snoop didn't mind. It was where he came from. Ever since he was a youth, he rode with the Roland 20 crypts. The streets were his world. He was in no hurry to leave them behind despite his success. At the record release party for Doggy Style a month after the What's My Name video started dominating MTV, another riot broke out, this time on a yacht. The same streets that inspired him, the same streets that contributed to the rawness and authenticity of the music he created, the music that had made him a star. That street ethos was the same element that would potentially sent Snoop to prison for 25 to life. We'll be right back after this word, word, word.

September 8, 1994, Snoop Doggy Dog, aka Calvin Brodus, aka Snoop, aka Snoop, aka the DOG, one of, if not the biggest name in all of hip-hop, was busy avoiding his nerves backstage at the Universal Amphitheater. Last year at the same event, after presenting an award alongside his mentor, Dr. Dre, and his hero, George Clinton. Snoop and his attorney went downtown, and Snoop turned himself in. A warrant was out for him, for a murder beef. A beef that was now, still, a year later, on the minds of all the fans, artists, press, paparazzi, and starfuckers who were contributing to the low din of sound

penetrating the dressing room from the theater. Snoop waited, without a shred of anxiety, laid back, despite the fact that tonight would not be like any other night. Her usual, the 1994 MTV Video Music Awards, aka the VMAs, operated as a kind of culture catch-all where old icons and upstart tastemakers get to play in the same sandbox,

where various genres got to share a stage and audience, and depending on who you were talking about, either a hit off of a blunt or a last dance with Mary Jane from behind the curtain before taking the podium. Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley were conspiring. to gross a makeout in front of a nationally televised audience. The recently departed Kirk Cobain was paid tribute to. Roseanne Barr hosted and miraculously wasn't a complete and total embarrassment.

Bruce Springsteen bummed everyone out with the performance of the streets of Philadelphia, and David Letterman flirted with Madonna, who didn't mind. There were 12 artists who performed, most of them rock, Arrowsmith, the Rolling Stones, Smashing Pumpkins, Green Day, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Stone Temple Pilots, and the aforementioned boss. Boys to Men laid it on thick with their R&B ballad, I'll make love to you. The Beastie Boys, once a more traditional hip-hop group,

were at the time expanding their already significant crossover success by recalling their hardcore roots. They brought the heat with the performance of their banger sabotage. That left Salt and Pepa and Snoop as the lone representatives of the hip-hop genre. Salt and Peppa blasted through a medley of their biggest hits. Push it. None of your business. What a man.

and the sex-laden shoe. Hip-hop and R&B might have been pushing Rock off at the charts in 1994, but pound for pound that night, at the VMAs, rock was the dominant genre onstage. But it was clear that by the early 90s, hip-hop and rock were getting more and more comfortable hanging out. It started a couple years earlier with Run DMC and Arrowsmith's remake of the Arrowsmith Classic Walk This Way from 1986,

a safe venture into the unknown by both artists. It was followed up by a more street-inspired, hardcore mashhove from anthrax and Public Enemy, who took P.E.'s bring the noise and gave it new energy on the back of Scott Ian's thick guitar wrists that somehow melded effortlessly with Hank Shockley's City Street Siren-soaked original track. The first three Lalapalooza lineups made great strides in bringing hip-hop to the Alt Nation teen set, just as Ice T was exposing his rap fan base to hardcore punk with his body cow project. The melding of these genres culminated in the soundtrack to the 1993 film Judgment Night. Seattle Proto Grungeoff at Mudhadi collaborated on a track with thick booty advocate Sir Mixelot.

Noise behemist, Dinosaur Jr. paired up with Mr. Davila himself, Dell the Funky Homo Sapien, to say nothing of the slamming contributions between House of Pain and Helmet and the title track by Biohazard and Onyx. All of it made for essential teenage listening in the early 90s. It was becoming clear, hip-hop was no longer fringe. It was, in fact, in the process of infringing upon rock's dominance and becoming the more culturally significant of the two mainstream genres, a reality that was hard to fathom five years earlier at the 1989 VMAs, where hip-hop was repped by an out-of-shaped Bobby Brown,

singing the theme to Ghostbusters 2 in a perpetually breathless tone loke grumbling his way through his top-10 hit, Wild Thing. By 1994, hip-hop had come a long way. Snoop knew it. As one of the biggest names in the genre, the stakes for his performance that night couldn't have been higher to say nothing of the fact that his murder case could take him out of the rap game completely. He had pleaded not guilty during a pretrial hearing in December of 1993, and now, with the trial looming, he understood that 25 to life was a real possibility. So this performance mattered. The world was watching, and so was the street.

Primetime, the money slot. Between Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Stone Temple Pilots. The audience was heavy on anticipation. Cindy Crawford, Tony Bennett, Chuck D. Flavor, and Flavre, John Stewart, Ed Lover, and the other Dr. Dr. King Latifah, Ben Stiller, and Dennis Leary all looked onto the stage with a mixture of awe, anxiety, and skepticism.

It was clear that this wasn't going to be an ordinary performance. The first notes of the piano hit, And then the sopranos in the gospel choir chime in. A preacher calls out a benediction, the Lord's Prayer, and then rifts his way into a spoken rap that is part Al Green and part Bobby Bird. And we come to the crossroads like Calvin Brodus, he preaches. The piano player picks the rhythm up. The gospel choir vamps.

The preacher continues with the open casket in the middle of the stage, flanked by Paul Barre Thug bodyguards, a procession of family and friends passed by the cast. women fall to their knees in grief. The thugs help them along. The camera focuses on the casket itself. It's the street spilled into the church. It's the church spilled onto the stage.

It's the Holy Ghost unloading on the audience with a loaded Glock. And then, the beat finally drops. The gospel choir loosens itself up into a club step, clapping on the beat, swaying in unison. The minor gong of hell is wrung out. Snoop's voice is moving through the verse, but from somewhere out of sight, off the song. stage. The camera fixes on the open casket, just another street funeral, just another coffin.

The devil from Snoop's murder was the case short film appears on the screens above the stage. Snoop bargains with him. Gospel choir belts out the chorus. Snoop nails the response. Murder was the case that they gave me. A beam of light blasts from the coffin and the white-gloved undertaker shuts the lid. Snoop enters from stage left, cripped out to the max, parms, snarl. flannel clad in a wheelchair, being pushed to center stage by another thug. He's hobbled, but not for long. By the middle of the verse, he's on his feet.

Once enfeebled, now full strength. And by the time the song ends, Snoop is standing at center stage, defiant. I'm innocent. I'm innocent. The music goes silent and the audience erupts. As dramatic as the performance was, it was nothing compared to the drama

of the real-life incident that inspired it. Snoop recognized the gun right away, if not the assailant. Out of the corner of his eye, he could tell it was a 380s semi-automatic, and thus its owner wasn't a real player. An associate at best. Real thugs prefer 9mm, specifically Glock 19. hand-held widow makers, palm-sized orphan generators. Fuck that pocket rocket jive. The 380s were cheaper, had less recoil, and thus less power. They were dainty by comparison.

When you needed a kill a motherfucker for real, the Glock 19 was your go-to. But guns being guns, the assailant had Snoop's attention. Recognize whose turf you're on and get the fuck out of this neighborhood. This is your first, last, and only warning. Snoop nodded slowly and kept his eyes focused. focused on the asphalt gas station parking lot. The assailant had a final question in command for the young hip-hop superstar. Well, what the fuck are you waiting for?

With that, Snoop put one foot in front of the other and glided back over the streets he depicted in his wraps, back to his apartment in the Palm's neighborhood, just north of Inglewood. Once safe inside, the piece was short-lived. Snoop heard yelling from outside, down on the street. Sean Abrams's friend was getting into it loudly with some gangbangers. A local crew, the by yourself hustlers. Snoop could see it from his window on the second floor,

clear his day, the 380, strapped into the backside of the waistband on the thug they called Little Smooth. Shit. Snoop separated his bodyguard, McKinley Lee, aka Malik, from the leather couch and the video game he was playing, and the two of them bounded down the stairs and out onto the street. Perhaps it was the even odds of the daunting size of Malik,

and whatever it was, the gangbangers beefing, Sean split. Fuck it. Snoop was late for the studio anyway. He, Sean and Malik, jumped into Snoop's brand new Jeep, Cherokee, and took off. Snoop was at the wheel,

Sean in the back. Malik rode shotgun, Snoop lit a blunt, banged the volume on the console and took the sounds of the Delphonic's enemies. The slinky distorted guitar rose up out of the speakers

and moved itself around the smoke from Snoop's blunt. The words were freaking them out. Snoop couldn't help but think about what he was going through. In the course of a few short months, he'd gone from an unknown street tough in Long Beach to having one, if not the, most heavily anticipated debut albums for any artist of all time. And here he was getting guns stuck in his grill on routine trips to the gas station for munchies. And shit was heavy.

And so were the Delphonics. They kept at it. The air blowing into the topless Jeep felt good. His track was fucking weird, or maybe Snoop was just stone, but he couldn't tell. Snoom felt just a slight tinge of paranoia. Those dudes from out in front of the apartment, what the fuck? Is there going to be more beef? And the dude at the gas station with the pocket rocket.

Snoop told Malik about it, but Malik was chill, seemingly unconcerned, watching the wheels go around and the passing cars. Snoop was rolling slow, laid back his mind on his money, his money on his mind, And this Jeep was cool and all, but Snoop was looking forward to the day when he could afford a real whip. A brand new rolls are a pimped-out refurbished 67 Pontiac, yellow, like the color of Iceberg Slim's teeth. The thought of Iceberg Slim made him think of Dolomite, and the thought of Dolomite made him smile to himself. But then... Shit.

The gangbangers from outside the apartment. Out in the open. In plain sight. Sitting at the picnic table in the Palms Park. Right there by the tent. Snoop didn't think he accelerated, rolled up on them, stopped the Jeep. The gangbangers looked up from the sweaty Mexican food they were eating. One of them, a little smooth, aka Philip Waldemariam, stood up.

Snoop and Malik had looks on their faces that said the same thing. What the fuck? Philip spoke out. I'm not trying to sweat you all. I'm just trying to let you know where you're at. Malik stood up in the topless Jeep, towering over the Cherokee's windshield and staring with menace at Philip. Philip grew agitated and shouted out. Oh what?

I'm a punk down. Malik hit him back with a stern. What? Philip's friend, Jason London, who was at the scene, later testified that that's when Malik pulled his pistol and took aim at Philip. Philip then, according to Malik anyway, reached back for his 380 tucked into his waistband. Malik caught the move.

Snoop ducked. Malik fired from the Jeep, and Philip fell to the ground before he was able to draw on Snoop and his crew. Snoop banged on the accelerator and got the hell out of it. there. He, Malik, and Sean went into hiding. Philip Waldemiriam went into the afterlife, died on the scene, face down, in the streets. Snoop gave himself up a couple days later, but only after the VMAs, of course. He didn't end up going to trial until in 1995, and murder was indeed the case that they gave him, but a racially diverse jury could not convict him of that charge.

and there was a great deal of debate around Snoop and Malik's claims of self-defense, specifically that Philip Waldemarium had a gun and was a threat to kill them. After some time, at the trial, it was eventually discovered that Philip's friend, Disham Joseph, who was also at the scene, hid the gun. Jason London, another one of Philip's friends who was there for the entire incident of Palms Park, testified that, yes, Philip was strapping, and yes, his gun had been removed from the scene and hidden to protect him. It was also discovered that the LAPD had handled the case with incompetence, shocker, having inadvertently destroyed Phillips' clothing, bullets, and shell casings from the scene.

When this was revealed, the jury could be seen in the courtroom, visibly rolling their eyes and shaking their heads. Snoop and Malik were eventually acquitted and in no time back on the streets. What did Snoop say? I'm innocent. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page at disgracelandpod.com.

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