I was coming from the skating rink when I [first heard] Doggystyle. It’s funny I remember these things. My auntie’s boyfriend was playing it while he was driving. My auntie said, “I thought you didn’t like Snoop Dogg.” And he replied, “I had to hear it a few times.” Little did I know he was just hatin’ because he was from the opposite hood.
I actually listened to it when I was 6. Believe me, when you’re from Compton, Long Beach, Watts, South Central, Inglewood…that’s all they were playing around you as a kid. I couldn’t escape it. I remember seeing Snoop Dogg on this video station called The Box. Somebody kept ordering “Ain’t Nothing But A G Thang.” I watched videos a lot, so I was familiar with him.
My favorite records are “G Funk Intro,” “Tha Shiznit,” “Pump Pump,” “Gz And Hustlas”… One of my favorite lyrics from the album is, “You’s flea and I’m the big dog/I’ll scratch you off my balls with my muthafuckin’ paws,” from “Doggy Dogg World.” It wasn’t the most complex line, but at the time, that’s all a 7-year-old could catch. I thought it was hard.
I’m definitely influenced by that album. The structure. The cohesiveness. The skits. The flow. The melodies Snoop kicked. The raw raps. There wouldn’t be a Kendrick Lamar without Doggystyle. [What stood out about the album] was its sound. Albums that last that long have their own sound. It was nothing duplicated, that’s why it stood out. It was that G-Funk.
I listen to it every two to three plane rides a song or two rotates in my iPhone. That fact that we still discussing it 20 years later says everything about it. –Kendrick Lamar
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