By Mesfin Fekadu, Music Writer
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) --Snoop Dogg has cleaned up his image from gangster rapper to multi-format entertainer, but he's looking to the past in a new series he's developing for HBO.
Snoop announced Friday — when he was giving the keynote address at South by Southwest — that he's working with Allen Hughes on the show about 1980s Los Angeles.
Snoop, a former gangster rapper, was born in Long Beach, California. Hughes' credits include "Dead Presidents," ''Menace II Society" and "The Book of Eli."
"HBO is the number one network in the world as far as developing and having these types of shows come to life," he said. "This is a dream come true to be able to tell a story that's going to be told the right way on the right network."
In a wide-ranging interview Friday with his manager Ted Chung in Austin, Texas, 43-year-old Snoop discussed topics from getting high with Willie Nelson to meeting Dr. Dre.
Here's a breakdown:
BEING BAKED AND EATING FRIED CHICKEN
The chicken was fried, but Snoop and Willie Nelson were baked.
Snoop and Nelson collaborated on the song "My Medicine" and he said "it was love at first sight."
"We went in the green room, had a conversation and from there the conversation sparked up the idea of — yeah sparked up the idea of — me and Willie wanting to collaborate," he said as the audience at the Austin Convention Center burst into laughter.
Snoop went to Amsterdam, where Nelson was on tour, and worked on the track. After smoking so much marijuana, they decided to get food.
"They give us the bucket of chicken, we open it up, boom, and me and Willie stuck our hands in at the same time and we grabbed the same piece of chicken," he said, as the audience laughed again. "And I look at Willie, I was like, 'That's you dog, my bad.'
"That was one of the greatest moments in my life."
WHO NEEDS A GRAMMY?
Though Snoop has had platinum-plus albums and hit songs, he's never won a Grammy.
But he says he's not worried about winning awards, thanks to his youth football league. He said he's proud he has been able to send young men to Division I schools to play sports and gain an education.
"That's better than a Grammy right there," he said.
He also said his proudest moment was seeing his son, who earned a football scholarship to UCLA, go to college.
"He's first person in my family to actually go to college, so how do you think I feel?" he asked.
DROPPED CALL
Snoop admits he hung up on Dr. Dre when the rapper-producer reached out to him.
Snoop said Dre heard some of his music at a party and then called the young rapper to collaborate.
"Dr. Dre was like, 'Who was that rapping?" he recalled. "From that day he called me and I didn't believe it, I was like, 'Man, quit playing.' I hung up on him."
Dre called Snoop back and they went on to produce rap classics, from "Gin and Juice" to "What's My Name?"
"It was like magic," Snoop said. "We built a bond. It was a brotherhood."
GROWING UP
Snoop said when he burst on the music scene, he had many enemies.
"They went to Congress, Dionne Warwick and a bunch of people had my record on display talking about, 'He's the worst thing in the world,' and they were really out to get me," he recalled.
"And I had to get past that because you have to understand, a lot of these people I looked up to as kids and they were hating on me and didn't know me."
Snoop said he didn't let the backlash derail him and his mission as an artist.
"It rubbed me the wrong way and I was young and ambitious and gangster … but as a man now, I don't do that. I look at what they did, how they rubbed me the wrong way and I try not to rub my young homies the wrong way. I try to be for them and about them, and understand them and talk to them and communicate with them."
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads — essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More