Snoop Dogg Reflects on The Time Dionne Warwick ‘Out-Gangstered’ Him

Dionne Warwick once “out-gangstered” Snoop Dogg and other 1990s rap stars over their misogynistic lyrics, Snoop revealed in a new documentary about the iconic singer. The “Walk on By” singer decided she had enough of their lyrics and asked them to change their tune. Snoop was so stunned that he took her request seriously and changed direction on his 1996 album Tha Doggfather.

“These kids are expressing themselves, which they’re entitled to do. However, there’s a way to do it,” Warwick said in the documentary Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over. The special aired on CNN on Jan. 1.

Warwick then called Snoop, Suge Knight, and other rappers to her home for an intervention. She demanded they show up at 7 a.m. on the dot. When they got the invitation, they were “kind of like scared and shook up,” Snoop, 51, admitted. “We’re powerful right now, but she’s been powerful forever. Thirty-some years in the game, in the big home with a lot of money and success.”

They took the invitation seriously and arrived at 6:52 a.m. When Warwick let them into her home, she began calling them all “b-,” just as they referred to women in their songs. Warwick insisted they needed to “grow up” because they will have children who will wonder why they sang that way about women.

“You guys are all going to grow up. You’re going have families,” Warwick recalled telling them. “You’re going to have children. You’re going to have little girls and one day that little girl is going to look at you and say, ‘Daddy, did you really say that? Is that really you?’ What are you going to say?”

The rappers had the wind knocked out of them when they heard one of the greatest singers in history taking them to task for their lyrics. “She was checking me at a time when I thought we couldn’t be checked,” Snoop said. “We were the most gangsta as you could be but that day at Dionne Warwick’s house, I believe we got out-gangstered that day.”

Snoop, who has three sons and one daughter, went on to thank Warwick, 82, for inspiring him to make “records of joy” that could uplift listeners. “Dionne, I hope I became the jewel that you saw when I was the little, dirty rock that was in your house. I hope I’m making you proud,” Snoop said.

Warwick, who would make a pretty good Twitter CEO, is still letting artists know what she thinks of their work. She once called out Chance the Rapper for including “the Rapper” in his stage name. “If you are very obviously a rapper why did you put it in your stage name? I cannot stop thinking about this,” she wrote in December 2020. After Chance said he was stunned that Warwick even knew who he is, she replied, “Of course, I know you. You’re THE rapper. Let’s rap together. I’ll message you.”