Snoop Dogg remixes BadBadNotGood's Lavender into politically charged track
CBC News | Posted: March 14, 2017 3:30 PM | Last Updated: March 14, 2017
Intention to make a song 'real to the voice of the people who don't have a voice,' says rapper
Snoop Dogg's remix of a song by Canadian group BadBadNotGood has triggered a controversy with its politically charged message and satirical music video.
The veteran rapper released a music video Sunday for his remix of BadBadNotGood's Lavender, a track from the Toronto instrumental hip hop-jazz troupe's latest album IV and featuring a collaboration with Montreal DJ and producer Kaytranada.
In the track Lavender (Nightfall Remix), Snoop offers foul-mouthed commentary on the current troubled state of race relations in the U.S., police brutality against African Americans and the presidency of Donald Trump.
Co-directed by PrankvsPrank YouTuber Jesse Wellens, the accompanying music video depicts a world peopled with clowns. It features actor, filmmaker and hip hop fan Michael Rapaport pulled over and shot by a police officer during a traffic stop, with an onlooker filming the incident — echoing the death of Philando Castile.
The footage also features an orange-faced, Trump-like clown figure named "Ronald Klump" ranting during a televised press conference. Later, the figure is shot at with a fake gun — which releases a flag with the word "bang" — by Snoop.
The intention was "making a song that was not controversial but real — real to the voice of the people who don't have a voice," Snoop told Billboard magazine.
"Snoop shouldn't have done that," Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a former Republican campaign rival to Trump, said in a video posted by TMZ.
"We've had presidents assassinated before in this country, so anything like that is something people should be really careful about," declared the self-professed West Coast rap fan.
"If the wrong person sees that and gets the wrong idea, you could have a real problem," Rubio added.
'I'm trying to fill in a void'
Snoop added he is not looking for any response for the video.
"I don't ever expect or look for a reaction. I just put it out because I feel like it's something that's missing. Any time I drop something, I'm trying to fill in a void," the rapper told Billboard.
"I feel like it's a lot of people making cool records, having fun, partying, but nobody's dealing with the real issue with this f--king clown as president, and the shit that we dealing with out here, so I wanted to take time out to push pause on a party record and make one of these records for the time being."
Snoop (whose real name is Calvin Broadus Jr.) was apparently inspired by Lavender after hearing a studio engineer playing the new BadBadNotGood album and, after discussing the timely music video concept with Wellens, immediately wrote fresh verses for the remix.
"I love what they do," he said in a statement, calling the Polaris Prize-nominated BadBadNotGood "so real."