Bow Wow fielded a plethora of questions from his fans via Twitter on Wednesday (March 23). A popular topic was Bow Wow’s relationship with So So Def founder Jermaine Dupri, who took the 35-year-old rapper under his wing as a teenager. But judging by some of Bow Wow’s responses, it doesn’t exactly sound like they’re on the best of terms.
As Bow Wow mentioned to HipHopDXin a recent interview, he truly credits Snoop Dogg with his career and it’s clear he has some regrets. When someone asked, “If you could go back and change anything from the past what would it be?” Bow Wow replied, “Stayed w Snoop. And never signed w nobody else.”
The comment could perceived as a jab at Dupri considering Bow Wow was signed to So So Def in the late ’90s. He dropped two albums with the imprint — 2000’s Beware of the Dog and 2001’s Doggy Bag — then signed with Columbia Records for 2003’s Unleashed, the first without any assistance from Dupri. The album was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) shortly after its release, proving to Bow Wow he didn’t need Dupri to make a hit.
He feels similarly about the single “I’m A Flirt,” a bonus track from 2005’s The Price of Fame. While Dupri was very much involved in the album, Bow Wow, Lil Ronnie and R. Kelly were responsible for writing the platinum-selling single.
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“Ima flirt,” Bow Wow replied when asked what song he was most proud of. “Because it was w out jd. And it went number one w out jd. And i wrote it w out jd. My whole career i had to over prove to folks im not to be played w. It was like kobe winning w out shaq. Even jd told me, ‘if u think u can do it w out me THEN DO IT’ welp i did.”
Bow Wow continued to tweet things such as “I just wished I stayed w snoop” and admitted he and Jermaine Dupri have “no work chemistry.” He added, “I aint work with that boy in years. He do him and I do me.”
As for Snoop Dogg, the D-O-Double-G first discovered Bow Wow as a kid when he was performing at a show in Los Angeles. Speaking to DX, he explained, “He’s somebody who’s responsible for my career, somebody who I would never turn my back on. Whatever he needs, he knows he can get it from me and vice versa, you know what I mean? I love him.”
He echoed those sentiments in a tweet, writing, “Snoop is the best thing that happen to me. If it wasn’t for him none of yall would know me. That’s the only big homie I got. He gave me a chance. Everyone else was just add ons to what we had started.”
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When Bow Wow was further pressed about his relationship with Jermaine Dupri, he denied they gelled at all. “Not really,” he said when someone suggested they had “great” chemistry in the beginning. “Im cool if me n jd never work again. Which I know for sure we won’t.”
He added, “Jd cool. We just don’t work together thats all. Me n dj aint worked together in like 10 years. I gotta work with the man to be cool?”
Bow Wow plans to take his rap career full circle with his last, yet-to-be-titled album, and Snoop Dogg is going to play an integral role. Now that Snoop owns the Death Row Records brand, Bow Wow is plotting to release the project on the iconic imprint with Uncle Snoop in the executive producer’s chair.
“There’s a documentary coming with the album ’cause my last album’s going to be the soundtrack for the documentary,” he told DX earlier this month. “That’s kind of what me and Snoop was talking about. It helps to get that chance to come back home and bring it in full circle. He wants to do my project. He wants to be a part of it. He wants to produce with me.
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“He’s like, ‘You gotta come home. Everything in life is full circle, right? So you might as well end it at home where you started.’ I never got that opportunity. It’s time to reel it back in our own and get back on this swing. We gotta do what we got to do. I’m excited. It’s going to be an exciting year.”
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Although there’s no projected release date for Bow Wow’s forthcoming album, it’s expected to drop before the year is over.
“When it’s me and Snoop on FaceTime at dinner, is the equivalent to me being in front of you with a pen and a paper,” he explained. “So, it’s however you want to to do it. That’s family. We have business like that. It’s smooth, it’s easy. And the business world is tougher when you don’t have that relationship or that connection. That’s what makes it harder, so I’m just trying my best to make it easy for my guys. It’s going to be exciting. That’s my guy.”
