Rap talks about the way things are, not just the way things ought to be. Like back in the sixties, when they had protest music, those songs gave people a clue about what was really going down around them, got them motivated. Rap has got some of the same purpose, but it's about a whole lot more than complaining over the situation. Rap is an answer in itself, a way for the niggers to make a noise, get noticed and scare the shit out of a lot of motherfuckers who've been trying to pretend that, if they don't pay us any attention, maybe we'd just go away.

Indeed, though criticism of violence in rap lyrics is widespread, the lyrics of country and western songs -- usually about divorce, drunken driving and adultery -- and of rock, which was dangerous a long time ago, before most rock stars turned 50 and had their first face-lifts, rarely receive the same scrutiny. Also, the artists in country and western and rock are usually as white as rice, suggesting the double standard that's involved when a black man speaks his mind.

Full disclosure: I write this as a cracker with no use for the powers that be. On that level, I connect with Snoop and other rappers whose disgust with society's enforcers is self-evident. Almost every night when you turn on the tube, you see someone like Joe Lieberman, Bill O'Reilly, Rudy Giuliani or Rush Limbaugh, whose primary agenda seems to be to tell all of the rest of us what we can and cannot do. Unless you're a talking head yourself, counteracting them seems impossible.

So when Snoop pops up in a music video on BET, cruising in a lowrider, marijuana smoke curling out of his mouth, or when I hear him on the radio singing about "Hennessey 'n' Buddah" or about "stackin' dollars," "layin' a girl on her back" and smokin' "till your eyes get cataracts," it makes me wanna holler. And when I see that he's teamed up with my other hero, Larry Flynt, to put out the first ever rap-porn collaborative effort, "Snoop Dogg's Doggystyle," I know that freedom rings in at least one part of this nation, no matter how much institutions of repression like, well, the Federal Trade Commission, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Senate wish otherwise.

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It's no mistake that Snoop's music recalls the more egalitarian decade of the '70s, an era when "Soul Train" was all the rage and every Saturday morning brought us "Schoolhouse Rock" and "Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids." Musically, Snoop's raps bounce, incorporating elements of soul and funk, sampling Earth, Wind and Fire and sounding for all the world like a latter-day version of Kool and the Gang or the Commodores. Snoop's mom remembered in an MTV interview that she and Snoop used to party on Fridays and Saturdays, drinking a beer or two and listening to the platters that mattered then. And Snoop has made the connection quite clear in several interviews.

"Growing up, that shit's all we heard," Snoop told Playboy in 1995. "Al Green and Curtis Mayfield. I'm into the soul collection. That's inspiration to me. Dramatics. Teddy Pendergrass. Isley Brothers. Enchantments. That's why motherfuckers say I sing instead of rap. That's why I got more of an R&B sound. They say my shit is gangsta because of the words I use. But if you listen to it, it's R&B shit."

The 1970s echo throughout Snoop hits like "Lodi Dodi," "Snoopafella," "Murder Was the Case," "Nuthin' but a G Thang" or "Snoop Dogg, What's My Name, Pt. 2?" And Snoop often mimics the great black DJs of that time with segments throughout all of his recordings that sound like they've been lifted from the radio. (Snoop has even had his own radio show, on and off, on L.A. rap station Power 106 and others.) If Snoop's language is harsher than we were used to back in the days of "Good Times," Jimmy Carter and the smiley-face logo, well, the times have become harsher too. Only Bill Clinton's presidency broke the tide of racial hostility in this country. Now that he's gone, we can look forward to the cruel cynicism inherent in every Republican administration.

As Snoop told Playboy: "The media created the buzz of rap being so terrible, but terrible is the ghetto shit we rap about. We put it in their faces. Motherfuckers losing their lives. The fucked-up system. They don't want to hear it."

They sure don't, Snoop. In fact, if you listen to some, they seem most afraid that blacks in this country may stand up and demand reparations for generations of slavery. But Snoop & Co. are not asking for shit, they're taking the dolo fair and square, much of it from the pockets of young white kids who love the beats and the attitude. It's a phenomenon Snoop wonders at as much as anyone, staring at a sea of Caucasian faces in places like Oslo, Norway, or Copenhagen, Denmark, as he states in "Tha Doggfather":

Looking out at those happy white people, bumping to the beat, flashing signs and singing along to my words, I have to ask myself, What are they getting out of all this? How is it they can relate to hip-hop as strong as anybody as black as I am? What's the connection? The answer comes around to being real. It doesn't matter what color you are -- anything that's got the ring of truth, you got to deal with one way or the other ... So I just tell the truth and let the rest of you motherfuckers sort it out for yourselves.

I'd back up Snoop against Dick Cheney, Asa Hutchinson and whatever other palefaced ersatz brownshirt they wanna throw up. It's not like Snoop really has to try to be a playa. It's in the man's blood. As he drops on the hit "Bitch Please," "If I don't move, a nigga like me? I don't lose./But you know me. Dog, I'm movin'./Ain't nothin' to it, but to get to groovin'."

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