photos by: Tamara Lee
Apparently, the thing to do when any iconic, pioneering rapper comes to Vancouver, is show them what we are made of. Usually, this means showing respect of the green and smokable kind. I’ve seen this before many times; Cypress Hill pelted with joints, Ice Cube’s guards getting passed thick blunts… hell, even Brittany Spears walked off stage because the fan puff was too much (really, this happened.) So this is how we do it in Van… and hey, if you’ve got it you may as well flaunt it, right?
It’s probably no surprise that when The Dee-Oh-Double-Gee himself visits, that this type of thing would be ramped up to epic proportions. Well let me just say, oh yes it was… When the lights went up and Snoop sauntered casually on stage, he was greeted by the thickest wall of smoke, cell phones and shrieking fans that I’ve ever seen. But typical to his
laid back manner, Doggfather just cracked half a smile, held up his diamond-blinged mic hand (reading ‘snoop’), and started in on his classics. This motif continued, delivering Tha Shiznit & I Wanna Rock smoothly while the Dogg Pound and dancing b-girls created bananas of hype around him.
Rumour has it that this show was the first of back to back fundraisers, and the amped crowd seemed to get exactly what they had hoped for. And Snoop proved himself to be a ‘man for the people’, (representing in a Vancouver Canucks jersey to boot); adverse to the gansta rap generation he originally emerged from. But I guess it’s just his style to be laid back like that, even when his mind is on his money and his money’s on his mind.