Snoop was acquitted of being an accomplice to murder in February 1996 by a Los Angeles jury, following a three-month trial. 25, 1993, Snoop's bodyguard shot a man dead from the passenger seat of a Jeep that the rapper was driving. In 1992 21-year-old Snoop dropped rhymes in several tracks on Dre's landmark album The Chronic, which quickly catapulted the duo to multiplatinum sales and superstardom.Īt the peak of his Chronic fame, on Aug.
Dre" Young, he had served several years in California's prison system for cocaine possession. By the time he was "discovered" by hip-hop producer Andre "Dr. We were proactive and we were going out and courting businesses we thought he should partner with," says Schwartz, a former NFL marketing representative.Ĭordozar Calvin Broadus-dubbed Snoop Dogg by his mom because of his lanky physique and unusually proportioned face-was born in Long Beach, Calif., in 1971, where as a boy he sang in the choir of his local Baptist church. "We weren't in the incoming call business. Making Snoop palatable to marketers was a long, calculated journey, says former manager Constance Schwartz, who retired from Snoop's team in the fall of 2009 but still serves as a consultant.
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Among his products: For $12.95, TomTom GPS Navigator users can download Snoop's voice to give them directions for $79.95, audiophiles can wear Snoop Skullcrushers headphones in black or blue paisley and for $19.99, you can sport a Neff Snoop Micro Dogg Tee. "When you're dealing with Snoop Dogg, he brings you closer to the brand and it feels like it's a part of you." Snoop's certainly trying to touch consumers in ways few rappers do. "A lot of brands, you can't touch them," the rapper says. Over the past year, he's raked in an estimated $15 million from music sales, a tour, acting gigs and Snoop-branded products that leverage his name, his look and deep baritone (Chung estimates that endorsement deals and branded products account for one-third of his income.) Snoop's so ubiquitous it's hard to remember that he was once held up on Capitol Hill as a poster boy for the idea that rap music bred a culture of violence. Partnerships like these helped land the rapper the seventh spot on Forbes' 2010 Hip-Hop Cash Kings list. But "California Gurls," a song by pop star Katy Perry featuring vocals from Snoop, has generated 3.3 million downloads to date and has been hailed as the hit of the summer. This year, his 10th album, Malice N Wonderland, never gained traction, selling 263,000 hard copies and only 362,000 downloads, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
Now homies like Snoop's manager Ted Chung, a 1999 Wharton alumnus, are helping him build a diversified business that hedges against the public's fickle musical tastes. I just said, 'Come on everybody, we made it.' Then I had to realize we didn't make it. When I first started I brought everybody with me, my homies from the neighborhood, criminals. "The most important decision I've made in business?" he said with a range of emotions flashing across his face, visible even behind the sunglasses. An hour later, facing an audience of a few hundred teenage and 20-something entrepreneurs hungry for Snoopisms, he slowly repeated a question from CNBC anchor Maria Bartiromo.