Universal's Snoop Biopic Rounds Out Its Cast
Universal Pictures has added four more names to the cast of "Snoop," its upcoming biopic of Snoop Dogg, with Laya DeLeon Hayes, Olly Sholotan, Corey Champagne, and Jonica Booth all joining the film (Deadline).
Hayes will play Shante Broadus, Snoop Dogg's wife. Sholotan takes on the role of rapper Kurupt, a longtime collaborator from the Death Row Records era. Champagne is set as Nate Dogg, the late singer and rapper whose hooks anchored some of West Coast hip-hop's most enduring tracks. Booth plays The Lady of Rage, the Virginia-born rapper who was part of Death Row's foundational roster.
Craig Brewer is directing the film, working from his rewrite of an original script by Joe Robert Cole — a screenwriter whose credits include Marvel's "Black Panther." Brewer previously directed "Hustle & Flow" and the 2011 remake of "Footloose," so he arrives with a track record in music-driven storytelling.
Snoop Dogg himself is producing through Death Row Pictures alongside the label's president, Sara Ramaker. Imagine Entertainment's Brian Grazer and Allan Mandelbaum also produce. The executive producer credits go to Michael Beugg and Jeb Brody. Universal is overseeing the project through executives Ryan Jones and Tony Ducret.
The biopic will draw on music from Snoop Dogg's own catalogue — a meaningful detail, since licensing an artist's life story and their songs are separate negotiations that do not always resolve in the same deal. Having the artist as a producer helps bridge that gap.
"Snoop" also carries a corporate footnote: it is the first project under Death Row Pictures' overall deal with NBCUniversal Entertainment, a partnership that gives the label a pipeline into Universal's film and television infrastructure. Domestic, the United States and Canada release details have not yet been set.
No release date has been announced. Snoop Dogg was previously played by comedian Gerald "Slink" Johnson in animated form on his "Doggyland" children's series, but "Snoop" marks the first feature-length dramatisation of the rapper's life from a major studio — and with Universal backing it, the film carries the scale of a theatrical biography rather than a streaming niche project.
For fans of the era, the casting choices signal that the film intends to populate the world around Snoop rather than treat his story in isolation. Nate Dogg, Kurupt, and The Lady of Rage were all central to the sound that came out of Death Row in the early-to-mid 1990s. Shante Broadus, whom Snoop Dogg married in 1997, has been a consistent presence throughout his career. The film's scope, at least on paper, reaches beyond one man.
