Snoop Dogg Criticized For Shooting Clown Dressed As Trump In Video
LOS ANGELES (CBS SF) -- Snoop Dogg is getting criticized over his latest video that features the rapper shooting a clown dressed as President Trump with a toy gun.
The video for a remix of the song "Lavender" by Canadian electronic dance group BADBADNOTGOOD with guest appearances from Snoop and Kaytranada was released this past weekend.
It includes a scene that shows the rapper pulling the trigger on a toy gun aimed at a clown dressed as President Donald Trump.
It's not the first time a rap video has raised eyebrows over content, but Snoop Dogg wields a lot of influence outside the music industry as a major pop-culture figure.
Snoop has a show on VH-1 that he co-hosts with homemaker queen Martha Stewart. He was one of the headliners the BottleRock Festival in Napa Valley two years ago.
He also runs a youth football league that has a branch in Fremont and is the subject of the online documentary series "Coach Snoop."
With that kind of social influence, the controversial video has drawn some high-profile criticism.
Florida Senator Marco Rubio told TMZ that Snoop went too far in the video.
"You gotta be very careful about that, because the wrong person sees that and gets the wrong idea it can be a real problem," said Sen. Rubio. "So I'm not sure what Snoop was thinking. He should think about that a little bit.".
As far as whether the scene in the video constitutes an actual threat, KPIX 5 political analyst melissa Caen said it doesn't appear to cross the legal line.
"You really need to show there's a plan or that you're specifically asking people to do something before it's a problem," said Caen.
The video doesn't includes other clowns in addition to the one clown dressed as the president, something Snoop made note of in an interview with Billboard magazine Sunday.
"It's a lot of clown s--t going on that we could just sit and talk on the phone all day about," said Snoop in the interview. "But it's a few issues that we really wanted to lock into [for the video] police, the president and life in general."
