The Broadus family are all about business. Whether they’re selling candles for home (like the affectionately titled Deez Nuts scent), or preparing to bring Snoop Loopz breakfast cereal to a store near you, Snoop Dogg and wife/manager Shante Broadus are all about creating opportunities for their family to work together, enjoy quality time and make money simultaneously.
“I love doing business with the family because we’re all together, we’re helping out and thinking of things and just spending time together,” Shante tells ESSENCE. “And it’s money being made at the end of the day.”
Their latest product is an extension of that, as the couple and their kids are working together to launch the Broadus Collection of luxury scarves. The line is dedicated to and inspired by their youngest child, daughter Cori. After being diagnosed with lupus as a child, she began to lose her hair. She was supported by her famous parents and siblings as they all began wearing scarves to aid her in feeling more confident.
“My family really made me feel comfortable with the situation that I was dealt with and turned it into fashion,” she says.
Soon enough, the family found themselves drawn to wearing scarves of all kinds over the years, and that’s when a lightbulb went off.
“We’re wearing all of these scarves and they don’t have no names on ’em. We’re just buying them tons after tons after tons,” Snoop recalls. “We’re a family of business people so the next step was, how do we create a business out of this?”
The Broadus Collection of scarves, with its six different bold styles and coming in two different sizes, was born. Made in collaboration with popular beauty and cosmetic company Annie International, can be purchased at BroadusCollection.com. And it can be worn by all, exemplified by the campaign starring Snoop, Shante, Cori, and sons Corde and Cordell.
We spoke with Snoop, Shante and Cori about this new line, other things they’re doing as a family, including traveling, and the business they’re building as a brood.
ESSENCE: How did the Broadus Collection of luxury scarves, in collaboration with Annie, first come together?
Shante Broadus: We all started wearing scarves around 2006.
Cori Broadus: I was diagnosed at the age of six with lupus. For those who don’t know, it’s an autoimmune disorder where basically your organs attack one another. So my immune system is super weak. I experienced hair loss, so my mom came home one day with a bunch of scarves and we were just playing in scarves and just trying them different ways.
Cori, how do you feel about being the inspiration for this collection and having the chance to see it be worn by others outside the family soon enough?
Cori: It feels good to be the inspiration behind this collection. If you really think about having lupus, even being sick at the age of six, you don’t really know what’s going on at that age. The doctors were telling me it could have been cancer, it could have been this, so the fact that I had my family’s support and them making me feel comfortable and beautiful even though I was experiencing hair loss, I’m just honored to be a part of this whole thing. I think it’s dope.
Snoop, speaking of scarves and hair, why has it been so important for you to be as versatile as you have been with your hair as a Black man?
Snoop Dogg: I come from an era, the ’70s, where hairstyle, fashion, all was important — more important to the man than it was to the woman. It’s more about me growing up the way I grew up. I was inspired by a lot of the men that I saw as a youngster. They would dress very well, their hair was always right, they could conversate [sic]. It was just me emulating the things that I saw as a kid, all the hairstyles that I saw from my uncles, the homies. Then I had a conversation with James Brown once upon a time about keeping my hair long and not cutting it. So some of those things go into my thinking process as far as my looks and my styles when it comes to my hair.
So is this the perfect collaboration for you?
Snoop: Well, for many years we were just wearing other people’s scarves. Me and my wife, we would just wake up in the morning with them on spontaneously. Then it was like the whole family was wearing them but we weren’t doing business. We realized, it’s got to be a way for us to make it into a business because when people think of scarves, they think of me and my family because everybody in my family wears scarves.
Speaking of doing things as a family, you guys recently went on an awesome family vacation to Bora Bora, and Snoop you said that was your first real one. What did you guys love about the experience?
Snoop: I just needed to get away. I’ve been working so hard and not ever experiencing what a vacation was. I just wanted to do it with my wife, first of all, because she’s always been there for me and allowing me to go do shows and travel and do all the sh-t that I ever wanted to do. Never complaining just letting me go. So it was like, let me find some time to spend some time with her first, mainly. So once I asked her, she’s a loving, caring mom: “Let me ask my daughter, let me ask my son.” Then before you knew it, it turned into a couple’s retreat, which I’m not opposed to because I love all my family. I know how to handle that kind of sh-t. But I just want to make her happy and it made me even more happy because we’ve done a vacation like four times this year. We went from one in 30 years to four in three months.
What?! Where else have you guys been?
Snoop: We done went to Hawaii, San Diego, we just went to the Bahamas. We got things lined up. It’s contagious now.
I was going to ask if it was going to become an annual thing.
Cori: It’s a monthly thing at this point.
Snoop: It’s a couple’s retreat because everybody’s out there with their special other half and it keeps everything peaceful. We have very minimal arguments. If there’s anything that’s thrown off or sideways, we laugh it off by us all being together. It never gets too serious where, “Motherf–ker I’m not talking to you!” None of that.
What about you Shante, what do you love about the trips you guys have been able to take as a family?
Shante: I love us all spending time together. I’ve always loved family time. Now that the kids are all older and don’t really have to kick it with us, it’s all fun. They want to come, we have fun. I love it.
Cori: Now I’m like, “When’s the next trip? Where we going?” I need to have my outfits ready. I’m spoiled now.
Snoop: Matter of fact, we’re going on another trip! We’re going to Vegas to see Usher perform. We done went to Chris Brown concert, we’re going to Usher, we’re just doing all kinds of sh-t.
You guys opened up the door to all these experiences. I love that!
Snoop: We’re finally able to live. I feel like my career has always been living for other people, doing for other people. It rubbed off on my wife, it rubbed off on all of us to where we started caring about everybody but us. It would be tax time and we would be so far in the hole, looking like, damn we gave these people all this money and they don’t even do nothin! What’s going on? So we had to get our business end together to be able to do business trips. So that started with me installing my wife as my manager, letting her run the compound, putting everything in a respective order to where when people come to this building, they respect it, not because of me but because of what my wife put into it to make it a professional environment, a professional setting. I’ve had Jeff Bezos, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Jimmy Iovine, who came up in here and were impressed. It’s a professional business we’re running and she’s the reason for that.
Is there anything else you want people to know about the Broadus Collection scarf line?
Shante: These are fun, colorful scarves. This is a family business and I just want everyone to support. It’s all for Cori.
Cori: Just piggybacking off my mom, I used to be embarrassed to show my hair and deal with what I was going through but I feel like we made it cool to just live in your situation and not look at it in a bad way.
Snoop: The beauty of the line is everybody in the family can wear this. Even grandma can tie it around her neck the old-school way. It’s so many different ways that you can wear these scarves and they’re a fashion statement. They look fly. It’s not just putting some patterns together and saying, “Buy them.” The way they feel, the way the packaging is, me and my wife on the front of it showing his and hers. My daughter can wear it, my grandson can wear it. It’s for everybody. This is something that’s universal. It’s just a beautiful piece of a collection that we plan to do more of.