It may not be the endorsement that tips the scales in the upcoming presidential election, but President Obama received a profane yet well-reasoned endorsement from none other than Snoop Dogg, aka Snoop Lion, at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Snoop was at the festival to screen his documentary “Reincarnated, Snoop Lion,” which chronicles his reawakening in Jamaica as a Rastafarian dedicated to spreading love and peace.
During a news conference that focused mainly on his movie, Snoop also expounded on his feelings about the presidential election between Obama and Romney.
“They need to give Obama four more years, man,” he said. “[Former President George W.] Bush [expletive] up for eight years, so you gotta at least give [Obama] eight years. He cleaned half the (expletive) up in four years, realistically.”
Snoop continued, telling reporters, “It ain’t like y’all gave him a clean house,” Snoop Lion told reporters. “Y’all gave him a house where the TV didn’t work, the toilet was stuffed up. Everything was wrong with the house.”
But Snoop wasn’t done yet. He also mentioned Osama bin Laden, saying that Obama “went and found him and knocked him down, so don’t forget about that.”
“So give him four years to get his thing together and finish this deal out,” Snoop Lion told reporters. “You heard what [former President Bill] Clinton said [at the Democratic National Convention]. You loved Clinton, didn’t you?”
In the documentary, viewers are able to see Snoop—born as Calvin Broadus—travel to Jamaica in search of meaning in his life after the death of his best friend, rapper Nate Dogg. In Jamaica, he finds what he is looking for among the Rastafarians and even gets wisdom from reggae legend Peter Tosh, who calls him “Snoop Lion.”
He said he is embracing reggae in a bid to make music that his “kids and grandparents can listen to.”
“I’m still Snoop Dogg,” he told reporters at the press conference. “This is me right now. I’m Snoop (expletive) Dogg till I die. But at the end of the day, when I’m making my reggae music, I’m in the light of Snoop Lion, so you know, you have to respect both worlds because there’s a softer, more gentler, peaceful side when he’s the Lion. But if you disrespect me … you will get the (expletive) Dogg.”
“They just crowned me the Lion, you know, because it’s associated with Rastafara, it’s associated with reggae music and they felt like the Dogg was no longer needed, you know, for my journey that I was on,” he added. “So it was given to me, it wasn’t that I chose that name. It’s a natural transformation. It’s like from the Dogg to the Lion. It’s not anything but a transformation and a growth of an artist and a person and a man.”
