The son of legendary singer Dionne Warwick says the 82-year-old once “out-gangstered” Suge Knight and Snoop Dogg, two West Coast artists known for having anything but a soft image.
Warwick’s son Damon Elliott shared the story while appearing with his mother on “The Jennifer Hudson Show” on Nov. 30.
Warwick explained to Hudson that she didn’t like the “cursing” associated with gangster rap music, so she summoned Knight and the “Gin and Juice” singer to her home for a morning meeting.
“I was a complete advocate against gangsta rap, whatever that is,” the “That’s What Friends Are For” artist said. “It was just something giving these kids permission to curse; that’s all it was, and call people out of their name, and I didn’t like it and did not want that to be into my children’s ears. And I called a meeting.”
Hudson asked if rapper Tupac Shakur was also called to the “meeting,” to which Warwick replied, “It was all of them.”
“I asked them to be at my house at 7 a.m.,” she recalled. “And they were there.”
Elliot said he was surprised to see Knight walking up the driveway at 6:59 a.m., but his mother was not.
“I was peeking over the ledge, and I said, ‘Mom, Suge Knight, Suge, Suge, Suge, Suge Knight’s at the driveway,’ and she said, ‘Um hmm. And there’s a whole bunch of others.’ And then Snoop walked up, and I went, ‘What’s going on?’ “
Elliot added that Warwick invited the men in and led them to the living room for the “meeting.”
“Like Snoop said, she ‘out-ganstered the gangsters,'” Elliot said, referring to Snoop Dogg’s recollection of the meeting in the CNN documentary “Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over.”
Snoop claims the group arrived “scared” to Warwick’s home at precisely 6:52 a.m.
“We were kind of like scared and shook up,” he said last year. “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.”
Warwick called out the men for calling women “b—hes” in their music and explained they would have daughters one day that they’d have to face.
“She was checking me at a time when I thought we couldn’t be checked,” Snoop recalled. “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.”
Things changed course with his sophmore album, “Tha Doggfather” in 1996 — his first project after leaving Death Row Records — and he hoped Warwick was proud of him for it.
“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,” he said.
Warwick and Hudson also sang a duet of “A House Is Not a Home” during the show, and Elliot joked about his mother’s frequent tweets.
The “Heartbreaker” singer is infamous for calling out celebrities in her hilarious tweets, including Wendy Williams, Chance the Rapper and Will Smith. In March 2021, Warwick wrote to Jada Pinkett Smith and said, “Hey, @jadapsmith. Why isn’t Will on Twitter. I tried to twote him earlier.”
The Grammy Award-winning artist has also told fans to “google” her rather than replying to their questions on the platform now known as X.
“The Jennifer Hudson Show” airs weekdays.
