Only a handful of today’s rappers have cultivated a sound indistinguishable from their peers. You know Jay-Z, Biggie, and 50 Cent when you hear them. On the opposite coast: Tupac, Too Short, Ice Cube, N.W.A., the list goes on. But Snoop Dogg is the Californian rapper with the most outstanding style. His sound and cadence are slow-footed, and that menacing snarl matches his name. The Long Beach-bred rapper held a cool pose like none other. And his clothes captured that essence with a slick and precious veneer. You could argue that not only did Snoop have a genuinely distinctive style compared to his comrades, but he elevated West Coast dress to the height of costume.
He’s got locs now, but before then, he could’ve been seen with his hair permed, straightened, platted, in an Afro, accessorized, and at times topped off with a funky hat or silk headscarf. Here you have a man from the originating state of “Gangsta Rap” primmed to pimpdom. Throw in a few pink barrettes for good measure. I start there because that’s what’s always stood out to me about him.
His clothes weren’t always so pretty, which is what makes them intriguing to dissect. Unlike his contemporaries, Dr. Dre or Ice Cube, the Long Beach rapper was devoted to an oversized plaid shirt fully buttoned. Baggy pants shrouded his tall, notoriously lean frame. His many jerseys, worn over short and long-sleeved white shirts with a single chain, put a hip hop spin to a look Allen Iverson popularised.
Here’s where it gets fun. Common to the genre’s sampling tradition, when Snoop released “Lodi Dodi” in 1993, he “updated Slick Rick’s choices with Cool Water cologne and Chuck Taylor sneakers,” curator and art historian Zoe Whitley once noted. Another statement-making moment was when he enlivened a wine-colored zoot suit with a cane and Godfather hat in 2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted, an animated approach that he wore well on the red carpet.
The Dogg standing next to Tupac at the 1996 MTV Video Music Awards, clad in a peak-lapelled seersucker suit and a complimentarily abstract tie, is the best example. His bob with a bowler hat plopped over it suggests there was an art to his dress.
But Snoop maintained such status without always appealing to the red carpet’s often over-the-top expectations. He is equally known to show up in something as simple as a letterman jacket, dark wash denim, and a pair of aviators and be just as fly. In every way, he gave West Coast fashion some pizzazz. He showed that they, too, had the potential to be dramatically stylish, and worthy of celebration. And as he moved up in the music industry, he ensured that what he wore matched how seriously he wanted to be taken as an artist.
During an interview at The 85 Comedy Show last year, he recalled having a suit made by Dion Julian formerly known as Dion Scott, a Beverly Hills bespoke tailor popular among Black celebrities. The rapper had been inspired by Tupac, who gave him the nudge to step up his fashion game if he wanted to be seen as a “general” or be considered for films where he might play the role of a lawyer or detective. Indeed, Snoop’s wardrobe level-up aligned with his ascension to stardom. Many other California rap stars have taken a page from his playbook.
Kendrick Lamar says frequently that Snoop has inspired him. There’s a similar intentionality seen in music videos, street-style photos, and the red carpet. Is Martine Rose to Lamar what Dion Julian was to Snoop? They’ve worn Black menswear designers with different aims and styles, and on other sides of the Atlantic, but who have managed to put them on the fashion map. Vince Staples, a fellow Long Beach native, channeled in GQ what could’ve been one of Snoop’s costumes in the 2001 hood drama Baby Boy.
The relaxed spirit underpins the California aesthetic, which Snoop twisted, thus making it more alluring. And in the current landscape, no hip hop artist makes the coast look cooler than Larry June.