Apparently you can teach an old Dogg new tricks. Oprah Winfrey famously called out Snoop Dogg for his sexist lyrics back in 2007. Eight years later, the rapper has gone on the record, claiming his attitude towards women has changed since the old dizzays.
D-O double G addressed accusations of lyrical chauvinism in a recent interview with the UK’s Sky News, confessing to past crimes, but pledging that his days of belittling women in his lyrics are over.
“Definitely, my attitude has changed towards women,” he said. “I am more sensitive and more vulnerable writing-wise and accepting a woman for being a beautiful person, as opposed to me saying she is a bitch or a whore.”
However, Snoop also added that he would not take back any of the bitch/whore slurs of the past, adding: “That was how I was trained when I first started, so I have no regrets.”
“I have no regrets because I didn’t have that in my life,” he continues, referring to his career when he was first starting out. “But when I got that in my life, as I bettered myself, I began to write that and started to live a better life. I’m not disappointed [in my former self] because he doesn’t know it’s his job to learn, to better himself. Once I figured out there was room to grow and learn and to be a better person then I incorporated that in everything I was doing.
“I don’t feel like you can be ashamed or mad about not knowing – if you didn’t know, then you didn’t know.”
Prior to his tour of Australia in early 2014 as part of the Big Day Out, an online petition began circulating calling for the rapper’s visa to be revoked. The petition cited his promotion of hate speech against women in his song lyrics and a interview with Rolling Stone, where the rapper admitted to being a real life pimp. Despite the petition, Snoop was admitted into the country.
The hip-hop king also delved into some of the factors that helped change his outlook on women, and the world: “What’s changed for me is that I have a family,” he said. “I have a different perspective and view on life, I have more concern with life.
“Twenty years ago I didn’t have no responsibilities, I was an ex-gang member who was still affiliated with gangs. I was hard headed and didn’t listen. I had nothing to live for but me.”
“As I grew I fell in love with my wife and started to love my mother, my grandmother and my daughter,” he said. “I understood what a woman was and I started to write about and express that.”
Snoop Dogg released his latest album, Bush, earlier this month after spending some time in the studio with super-producer Pharrell Williams. And, as NME reports, the rapper has admitted to changing the name of one song off the record, “So Many Pros”, from its original title of “So Many Hoes”, at Pharrell’s suggestion.
“That’s what I love about him as a friend – he ain’t afraid to challenge me,” Snoop told Pigeons and Planes “[He] was like, ‘You ain’t 25 no more. You’re 43, you’ve got a daughter’.”
