Snoop Dogg: What I Learned from Tupac's Work Ethic

Original: “Snoop Learns From Tupac’s Work Ethic” · MTV News · no byline · March 27, 1997

Get It Done, Put It Out: Snoop’s Lesson from Tupac

Tha Doggfather from November 1996 was barely four months old when Snoop Doggy Dogg announced his next album for July 4 at MTV Spring Break 1997. When host John Norris pressed him on why it had to come so quickly, Snoop’s answer led straight to Tupac: “I learned that from my homeboy Tupac, he was a workaholic.”

Tupac, he explained, had shown him and everyone around them how to focus on the work without watching the clock: get it done, put it out if it sounds good. His takeaway from that: “there’s no such thing as a perfect album.” There was no perfect album, only work and music that people like. And people needed a new album from him right now.

At the end, MTV announced that Snoop would launch his postponed tour in the spring, with Lil’ Kim, Foxy Brown, and Dru Hill, among others.

Over 150 Songs in the Archive: The July Album Never Came Out

Tupac’s work pace is well documented. Following his release in October 1995, he recorded material for multiple albums for Death Row in less than a year, including the double album All Eyez on Me and The Don Killuminati. In early 1997, his producer Johnny “J” Jackson spoke of over 150 finished songs (see Over 150 unreleased Tupac songs).

The July album never came out. Snoop spent the summer of 1997 on the Lollapalooza tour and left Death Row in 1998. His next album was released on Master P’s No Limit Records. A quarter of a century later, in 2022, Snoop acquired Death Row, taking over the label where he and Tupac had made their best-known records.

The report captures Snoop just a few weeks after Biggie’s death and six months after Tupac’s death: thoughtful, but determined to keep going.