SNOOP Dogg has finally lifted the lid on his decision to pull the Death Row Records catalogue from streaming apps including Spotify.
The American rapper bought the iconic record label, whose artists include Tupac Shakur, Dr Dre and Snoop himself, back in February.
Within weeks, a number of fan-favourite albums had disappeared from digital streaming platforms such as Apple Music and Spotify.
Snoop has now confirmed in an interview that he made the surprise move in response to the services’ close-fisted payment practices.
“First thing I did was snatch all the music off those platforms … because those platforms don’t pay,” the 50-year-old said during the latest episode of the Drinks Champs podcast.
“And those platforms get millions of millions of streams, and nobody gets paid other than the record labels.”
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Following the removal of albums such as Dre’s 1992 debut “The Chronic” and Snoop’s 1993 solo effort “Doggystyle” from Spotify in March, Snoop said he would re-release the music on the metaverse.
Speaking to Drinks Champs hosts co-hosts DJ EFN and N.O.R.E., he confirmed the bonkers plans.
The metaverse is a loosely defined network of virtual worlds where users can work and socialise that’s accessed using a virtual reality headset. Firms including Facebook have metaverses in the works.
Snoop said: “What I wanted to do is snatch my music off, create a platform similar to Amazon, Netflix, Hulu.
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“It’ll be a Death Row app, and the music, in the meantime, will live in the metaverse.”
Precisely how fans will access the music on the metaverse – and how much they’ll be charged for it – remains to be seen.
Death Row – which was co-founded in 1991 by Suge Knight – was one of hip-hop’s most influential labels, signing some of the biggest names on the West Coast.
The iconic label, however, first filed for bankruptcy in 2006 after a series of lawsuits and the imprisonment of Knight – who was with Tupac when he was gunned down.
The identity of the chart-topper’s killer has remained a mystery for more than 20 years and no charges have ever been brought.
Canadian-based Entertainment One (eOne) purchased the record label back in 2013 for $280million after its previous parent company went bankrupt.
It was snapped up by Hasbro six years later as part of the toy giant’s $4billion purchase of eOne, which owns the Peppa Pig franchise.
Snoop agreed to a deal with MNRK Music Group on February 9 to become the new owner of Death Row.
The exact terms of the deal remain a mystery but it’s thought to include most of the label’s catalogue.
It’s not the first time that the rapper has dabbled in the metaverse and NFTs (non-fungible tokens), unique, digital assets that sell for millions of dollars.
Last September, the musician outed himself as the NFT kingpin “Cozomo de’ Medici” on Twitter with an estimated $17million in NFTs.
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Three months later, Snoop launched a metaverse dubbed the “Snoopverse” in partnership with metaverse giant The Sandbox.
A fan forked out half a million dollars to be his virtual next-door neighbour.
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