Moment of Truce

“We gonna bring it all back,” says Daz in the studio, scheming, his eyes glazed from hours of smoking. “It all comes back like a circle, everybody got their time — the West gonna get it now.”

Growing up on the streets of east Long Beach, Snoop (born Cordozar Calvin Broadus) was reared on the music of Al Green, the O’Jays, the Dramatics and Marvin Gaye — and surrounded by his cousins Delmar Arnaud (Daz), Nathaniel Dwayne Hale (Nate Dogg) and friend Warren Griffin III (Warren G). (With the latter two he played Pop Warner football and later formed the rap group 213.)

''I'm like the quarterback- slash-marriage-counselor,'' says Snoop Dogg, who helped Daz Dillinger (left) make peace with Kurupt Young Gotti (right) to drop the new Cali Iz Active. (Photos by Antoine Bonsorte)

Brothers worked it out: Snoop and some of the luminaries who dropped in on the Cali Iz Active shoot.

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More About

• Dr. Dre
• Kurupt
• Snoop Dogg
• Hip-Hop and Rap
• Hardcore Rap

“Daz been in my life ever since we were kids,” says Snoop. “That’s my little cousin right there,” he says, pointing to Daz, who’s listening from across the room. “I showed him how to do everything, except how to screw.”

Snoop met Kurupt in 1991, at the Roxy in Hollywood. “You know they be having those showcases where the local rappers from the hood go get down,” Snoop recalls, leaning back in his chair. “We had a group from Long Beach called Perfection, and they was up there battling, trying to get a deal.

“After the show, there was a bitch out there talkin’ shit to my niggas: ‘Ya’ll niggas is wack, cuz. My homeboy serve all ya’ll.’ So she pull a nigga out of the cut” — Ricardo Brown, a Philly transplant from South-Central known as Kurupt — “and he get to servin’ niggas, servin’ all my homeboys. So I step up —” Snoop grows animated with the memory, nearly standing up as he describes what would prove to be a pivotal moment. “Me and him battlin’ for a minute — we just battlin’ 15 minutes, 20 minutes. Then we say, ‘Hold on, nigga, we ain’t getting nowhere,’ so we start complimenting each other, giving love. ‘If I make it, cuz, I’m gonna hook you up.’?” Snoop laughs as Kurupt listens, nodding his head in agreement.

Tha Dogg Pound was conceived that night, though no one knew it at the time.

Around this time, Warren G and Snoop had recorded some homemade tapes, which Warren eventually got to his stepbrother — ex–World Class Wreckin’ Cru foreman, N.W.A member and producer Dr. Dre. Along with Marion “Suge” Knight, Dre had just founded Death Row Records, the first mainstream West Coast gangsta-rap label, and he took Snoop under his wing. In 1992 they released the single “Deep Cover,” off the Bill Duke film of the same name. Snoop busted out onto the rap scene on Dre’s hit track.

Snoop had now “made it,” and while out one night seeing Queen Latifah perform at the Hollywood Palladium, he ran into Kurupt, and made good on his promise.

“I was like, ‘Cuz, I’m gonna bring you to Dr. Dre house and let you get down,’?” says Snoop.

Talk about making a grand entrance: Snoop brought Kurupt to Dre’s house on Dre’s birthday.

“I told Dre, ‘This nigga harder than a muthafucka, we need this nigga on the team,’ and he was like, ‘All right, but if the nigga wack, we gonna throw him in the pool and kick his ass out,’?” Snoop says, laughing at the memory.

While they were all partying, Dr. Dre gave Kurupt the microphone and put a beat on. Kurupt busted a freestyle birthday rap that, according to Snoop, had Dre observing, “That nigga harder than you.” Just like that, it was Dr. Dre, Snoop and now Kurupt on Death Row — but they needed more inmates.

Grunge was king at this time, and popular rap included hits like House of Pain’s “Jump Around” and Arrested Development’s “Tennessee” — but something fresh was brewing: A new generation was poised to take hardcore gangsta rap to the mainstream.

“My cousin Daz was fuckin’ up bad,” explains Snoop. “He had moved to Oklahoma on some bullshit, and was trying to move back [to L.A.]. My pops was like, ‘Let him live with you.’?” Snoop hesitantly agreed to the roommate proposal, and started taking Daz along to the studio at Solar Records. Over time, Daz picked up a few musical lessons from Dr. Dre, Snoop and Warren G. As it happened, Dre and Snoop were working on an album, and Snoop wrote Daz into a song with the line “Chiggie check, microphone check one.” Daz ripped on it. The track was “Deeez Nuuuts”; the album turned out to be Dre’s masterpiece The Chronic.

Kurupt was already Cali-sharp like a sniper, but soon Snoop saw that Daz was just as skilled, and envisioned them as a duo. All they needed was a name: “We were already calling my house Tha Dogg Pound.”

1992’s The Chronic introduced the whole Death Row lineup to the masses (including Snoop’s other cousin, RBX, as well as Daz and Kurupt), changing the rap game forever. Daz and Kurupt appeared again on Snoop’s first solo album, ’93’s multiplatinum Doggystyle; two years later, the two released their own album, Dogg Food, which also went platinum. Suddenly, Snoopy from Long Beach and his camp of family and friends were the hottest thing in rap.