Dionne Warwick gave a wake-up call to rappers’ egos
(Picture: Getty Images for Fashion 4 Devel)Dionne Warwick has revealed she told off Snoop Dogg over his misogynistic rap lyrics.
In CNN Films’ new documentary Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over, both stars reveal that in the Nineties Warwick organised a meeting with several top rappers — including Snoop and Tupac Shakur — to give them a piece of her mind.
The Motown legend was not happy about the lyrical content of their song, which often degraded women by referring to them as b*****s and h**s.
According to Snoop, now 51, the singer instructed him, Death Row Records co-founder Suge Knight — a now convicted gangster and murderer — and others to show up to her house by 7am.
The group arrived at her home several minutes early "scared and shook up", according to Snoop.
“We’re powerful right now, but she’s been powerful forever.
“Thirty-some years in the game, in the big home with a lot of money and success," he added. “The meeting kicked off with Warwick daring the rappers to call her a ‘b***h’."
“They all showed up and, yeah, it did work,” Warwick remembered.
“I think what it was was that they needed to hear me... These kids are expressing themselves, which they’re entitled to do," she explained in the film.
“However, there’s a way to do it."
She then recalled telling the artists: "You guys are all going to grow up. You’re going have families. You’re going to have children.
"You’re going to have little girls, and one day that little girl is going to look at you and say, ‘Daddy, did you really say that? Is that really you?’ What are you going to say?"
Snoop, who is father to sons Cordé, Cordell and Julian, and daughter Cori, said the interaction was a wake-up call to his ego.
"She was checking me at a time when I thought we couldn’t be checked," he said.
"We were the most gangsta as you could be, but that day at Dionne Warwick’s house, I believe we got out-gangstered that day."
He claimed he was inspired to change his lyrics going forward.
"I made it a point to put records of joy — me uplifting everybody and nobody dying and everybody living," he said.
"Dionne, I hope I became the jewel that you saw when I was the little, dirty rock that was in your house. I hope I’m making you proud."
