The clowns alone are enough to turn me off of Snoop Dogg’s new video for “Lavender“.
I don’t do clowns.
Of course, the clowns aren’t the point, it’s about Police Brutality or something. In any case, Snoop pulls a toy gun on a Donald Trump inspired clown. So people are talking about it.

Now you should know, I’m a huge fan of Snoop Dogg. Always have been, so his language doesn’t bother me. And if you are shocked by the use of a toy gun, you should probably sit down before watching his videos from the 1990’s. The tune itself is rather smooth and I dig it. The video on the other hand, is like all of my nightmares came to life in one short film.

Donald Trump, clowns and dirty cops. No thank you. However, it’s controversial so of course people will talk about it. Thus it works, it’s called marketing. The more shocking it is, the more keystrokes are wasted on it.

From an interview with Billboard magazine,

When asked what was going through his mind as he wrote the song, Snoop says he was “making a song that was not controversial but real — real to the voice of the people who don’t have a voice. It’s not like [Jesse] told me to make a record to express what I’m expressing on the song, but there were certain things that he said that brought that feeling, to make me want to express that when I was writing.”

Snoop continues, “The whole world is clownin’ around, and [Jesse’s] concept is so right on point with the art direction and the reality, because if you really look at some of these motherf–kers, they are clowns.”

Whatever. I hate clowns.

In the same interview, Snoop offered some political analysis of President Donald Trump…

“The ban that this motherf–ker tried to put up; him winning the presidency; police being able to kill motherf–kers and get away with it; people being in jail for weed for 20, 30 years and motherf–kers that’s not black on the streets making money off of it — but if you got color or ethnicity connected to your name, you’ve been wrongfully accused or locked up for it, and then you watching people not of color position themselves to get millions and billions off of it. It’s a lot of clown sh-t going on that we could just sit and talk on the phone all day about, but it’s a few issues that we really wanted to lock into [for the video] like police, the president and just life in general.”

Snoop makes a valid point about criminal justice reform. It makes no sense for people to be jailed for smoking marijuana while it’s legal in so many places. That’s a waste of taxpayer funds and resources. Of course the song was written long before Trump was in office, so he’s obviously just a proxy for all government. As we all know there was never a chance that we’d see an “Obama Clown” figure from Snoop Dogg’s creative team or anyone else’s for that matter.

It’s not a stretch for Snoop to get political. It’s just an odd telling of the story.