These Videos of Snoop Dogg Vibing to Banda Music Are a True Treasure
Art by Alan López for Remezcla
Snoop Dogg’s Instagram can seem like overkill at first glance, but sprinkled between the TV and film clips, recycled memes, and product promotions, you’ll find Uncle Snoop in his most cathartic state: vibing out to banda. It’s a given that the hip hop icon’s Long Beach upbringing set the stage for cultural exchanges with Mexican communities. Snoop Dogg’s latest release, Make America Crip Again, is an aesthetic assault against our MAGA-filled reality, and it’s the latest exercise in the OG’s championing of black and brown solidarity. The parallels between banda and rap, musical genres rooted in storytelling but often harshly criticized for their surface level glorification of violence, make the Doggfather’s appreciation for the regional Mexican genre that much more fitting.
While progress certainly remains to be made in the more problematic aspects of these genres, we can appreciate the cathartic nature of vibing out to some gangsta rap classics, or – in Snoop’s case – un corrido bien chingón. Uncle Snoop achieves full padrino status in these Instagram clips, taking us along his banda-fueled joyrides and moments of solace.
Snoop, if you’re reading this, my primo Ricardo hosts a karaoke night in his basement like once a month, pull up.
