Snoop Dogg has released what appeared to be a Donald Trump-dissing alternate cover to his upcoming album Make America Crip Again, and it’s raising quite a ruckus with conservative types, like Fox News.
Snoop posted the cover — which pays homage to fellow Los Angeles gangsta rap veteran Ice Cube’s 1991 sophomore album Death Certificate — to Instagram then deleted it after a wave of backlash from Trump supporters in the media. The cover is a near-exact recreation of Cube’s classic cover, but for the toe tag on the corpse in the morgue, which now reads “Trump” instead of “Uncle Sam.”
The rap elder statesman is no stranger to controversy; his music and persona have always pushed buttons, even back in 1992, when he released the police-threatening title track to the film Deep Cover — his first-ever appearance on record. Since then, he’s ruffled the feathers of the mainstream with his unfiltered worldview and relentless baiting of authority, both of which have only increased this year with the election of Donald Trump.
In March, he referenced a presidential assassination with a clown-faced stand-in of the sitting President in his music video for “Lavender.”
That incident prompted a response from the Tweeter-in-Chief, but the Doggfather was unimpressed and clearly refuses to back down from his anti-Trump position, much like his hip-hop compatriot Eminem.
Snoop told Rolling Stone the the Make America Crip Again moniker was not a specific reference to the gangbanging soundtrack music that first propelled him to stardom, but rather a repudiation of the motto that buoyed Donald Trump to his win at the polls last November.
“It’s not a statement or a political act: it’s just good music,” he said. “Certain people feel like we should make America ‘great again,’ but that time they’re referring to always takes me back to separation and segregation so I’d rather Make America Crip Again.”
He further expounded on the origins of the Crip gang, which derived from the remnants of the Black Panther Party and whose goals originally revolved around community enrichment and protection. “A lot of people glorify the gang-banging and violence but forget that in the beginning, the Crip’s main and sole purpose was to be the reflection of the Black Panthers. They looked after kids, provided after-school activities, fed them and stepped in as role models and father figures. I’m taking it back to the era of being for ourselves and for everyone else. I’m for the evolution of people coming together and being one as opposed to being separate. Music is the best way to heal.”
