Snoop Dogg, amazing torchbearer at the Paris Olympics

American rap legend Snoop Dogg, whose image is inseparable from his open marijuana use, will carry another iconic cone on Friday: the Olympic flame for the Paris Olympics.

His latest single, “Cali 2 Canada”, recently released with Warren G, has two leaves as its visual: that of cannabis (legal in certain states in the USA) and that of the maple tree, the emblem of the Canadians.

Snoop Dogg is still playing on his reputation as a heavy pot smoker, including in the press release from the American network NBC, which hired him as a commentator for the Paris Olympics.

“Let’s celebrate, let’s make these games unforgettable, let’s smoke the competition and let the best make the gold shine,” says the 52-year-old slender artist.

The rapper made the news official on his social networks at the beginning of the year. In a short video, he nonchalantly sways his hips on a Fashion Week catwalk, against a backdrop of the illuminated Eiffel Tower. The official logo of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games concludes this clip, lulled by “Tha shiznit”, one of the tracks from “Doggystyle”, the first solo album from 1993 that made him a star.

Hiring the dreadlocked Californian isn’t entirely far-fetched. Especially for NBC. “Snoop is already an Olympic gold medal commentator who has generated tens of millions of views for his commentary of key moments in the equestrian dressage events at the Tokyo Olympics,” NBC bigwig Molly Solomon said in a statement.

“Weird approach”

This sequence from the American platform Peacock (for which the rapper will also officiate during the Paris Olympics) has been making the rounds of screens in 2021. Snoop Dogg hallucinates in front of a horse that moves like a crab: “look at the weird gait, it’s great, I need it in my videos!”

“I grew up watching the Olympics and I’m super excited to see these incredible athletes perform at their best in Paris,” the rapper said in the NBC statement. His networks show that he’s mostly a big basketball and football fan.

But, surprise, in June, he offered himself a 200 meters for fun, following the former Olympic medalist Ato Boldon, who did not, however, force it.

Dressed in an outfit in the colors of America, the NBC channel and paying tribute to basketball player Kobe Bryant (who passed away in 2020), the artist did not look ridiculous in 34 sec 44. “Not bad at 52, huh?”, he joked while posing for the photo against the screen displaying his time, described as “quite respectable” by the American channel CNN.

Commentator, here is a new chapter in the life outside the box of the performer of the hit “Nuthin’ but AG Thang” on the album “The Chronic” (1992) by Dr. Dre, another legend of US rap.

Smoking book

It could have gone badly: a member of a Long Beach gang (south of Los Angeles County), Snoop Dogg was acquitted in 1996 in a murder case.

The rapper quickly managed to tear away the label of pure gangsta rap to enter, through his antics, into American and then global pop culture.

His career has had its ups and downs, such as when he tried to change his artist name, with Snoopzilla or even Snoop Lion for a reggae period quickly abandoned.

In the 2010s, he even published a book, Rolling Words, with a hemp cover and a matchstick spine. The book collected the lyrics to his hits, printed with nontoxic ink on rolling paper, with pages pre-cut so that they could be smoked in their entirety.

Obviously, we have to expect anything with him at the Paris Olympics.

“We’re going to have some crazy events, and of course, I’m going to bring that Snoop style into the mix: it’s going to be the most epic Games,” he said on NBC’s website, referring to himself in the third person. Close Encounters of the Third Kind in sight in Paris.