MTV News on Set: Tupac and Snoop Dogg (April 1996)

Original: TV segment · MTV News · reporter not recorded · video shoot in Los Angeles · April 1996 by its content

When and where

This MTV News segment survives without a date, but the text itself gives enough clues. MTV visited Tupac and Snoop Doggy Dogg “last weekend” on the Los Angeles set of the video for their duet “2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted.” Tupac, the voice-over says, had just been handed a four-month jail term for skipping a road clean-up assignment, that sentence came down on April 4, 1996. And Dr. Dre’s departure from Death Row (March 22, 1996) was “recent news.” The video came out on April 28, 1996. The segment therefore dates from April 1996.

The situation

Both men had just come through legal fights. Snoop had been acquitted of murder in February; Tupac was out on bail awaiting his New York appeal. He did not have to serve the new 120-day term from Los Angeles for the time being, because it was under appeal as well. The two had recorded the song in October 1995, days after Tupac’s release and shortly before Snoop’s murder trial began.

Friends and partners

On set they came across as a well-drilled team. The video was as much Snoop’s as his, Tupac said; at Death Row everyone moved “as one.” Snoop compared them to a track and field team, and Tupac added:

“We’re gonna tag team all day.” Tupac Shakur to MTV News, April 1996

Snoop said he wrote the song out of joy that Tupac was free, you can lock up one of us, he said, but not both. MTV described Tupac as the one calling the shots on set, including with Nate Dogg and Tha Dogg Pound. The credited director, however, is Gobi M. Rahimi.

Movies and Tarantino

Tupac announced joint film projects with Snoop, better than Lethal Weapon and 48 Hrs., “the future of black cinema.” He compared himself to Quentin Tarantino, whose gangster films were celebrated while Black artists telling similar stories were vilified:

“We get treated like the bad messenger and he gets treated like King Solomon.” Tupac Shakur to MTV News, April 1996

He made clear he wished Tarantino no harm and actually enjoyed his films. MTV added that Death Row was planning a film division, a New York office and a restaurant.

Dr. Dre

Asked about the exit of Dr. Dre, who had discovered and produced Snoop, Snoop declined to comment. Tupac sidestepped too, but spoke in general terms about loyalty: someone who isn’t there when you need him most doesn’t belong at your side, and what’s done in the dark always comes to light.

Why it matters

The short segment captures Death Row in the spring of 1996: two stars fresh from their court battles, brimming with confidence and big plans, and the first crack in the label with Dre gone. The video itself, with its parody of Biggie and Puffy, became a building block of the Bad Boy feud. Tupac’s prediction that people would one day look back above all on their stories from 1996 came true, though not in the way he meant it.

Read more: KMEL, April 1996 · Snoop Dogg