High Times at Ravinia Festival: Snoop Dogg Brings The West Coast to Highland Park
By Christopher David
Ravinia played unlikely host to one of hip hop’s biggest names on Friday as the one and only Snoop Dogg brought the house down for a night of dancing, storytelling, and one of the biggest parties of the summer.
Taking the stage to a series of raps from the early ‘90s—his iconic verses from “Fuck Wit’ Dre Day” and “Nothing But A G-Thang,” as well as “Murder Was the Case,” Snoop spent two hours strutting the stage, hyping up the crowd, and smiling from ear to ear at the broad demographic - everyone from kids to multi-decade, O.G. fans were there to pay homage to Death Row Records and Snoop’s undeniable legacy. The Lady of Rage came out for a couple of tunes including “Afro Puffs,” and Tha Eastsidaz joined Snoop multiple times to elevate things even further. The acrobatics from the strippers on either side of the stage for Snoop & Akon’s “I Wanna Fuck You” reminded everyone of why the rap artists of the ‘90s were so often compared to heavy metal artists of the time, with both genres pushing the envelope in terms of imagery and lyrics.
“I’ve been rapping up here for almost forty-five minutes and I ain’t lit up yet,” Snoop grinned at one point, lighting a sizable blunt, toking, and raising it to the crowd. “Who wants to get fucked up with me tonight?” "Ups & Downs" from 2004’s R & G followed, featuring the sample of the Bee-Gees 1979 hit, “Love You Inside Out.”
It takes a unique combination of talent, dedication, and cultural currency to stick around for more than three decades as an artist people still want to engage with, and Snoop Dogg has proven to be about as close to all-things-to-all-people as an artist can be. To see him in a venue as comparatively intimate as Ravinia when he could surely be headlining a festival or playing an arena was a rare treat, indeed.
