It’s 9:33 p.m. on a Tuesday night, and Rick’s Café is filled to the brim with students and Starkville residents eager for a music experience unlikely for such a small Mississippi town.On the stage is a local kid who goes by the name Z-Flo, delivering rhymes quickly and concisely to chopped and screwed beats. On the floor, guys in almost uniform Polo and Kavu hats mingle drunkenly with women in their shiny, low-cut splendor. On the far side of the room, a guy with an afro similar to that of Lionel from “Thundercats” stands patiently among an excited crowd that’s tightening by the minute. To say the crowd is diverse would be an understatement. And despite the low temperatures outside, the body heat is so high in the club that mounted fans are going at full blast.
Two-and-a-half hours later, it gets even hotter.
“Cut off that music,” yells the DJ on stage, referring to the stream of hip-hop that had been keeping the crowd occupied. It’s time. “Snoop Dogg is in the hooooouse!”
Beers of the light, domestic variety shoot up in unison, and the West Coast rapper emerges.
“As I look up, at the sky/ My mind starts trippin/ A tear drops my eye/ My body temperature falls,” Snoop rhymes.
“Murder Was The Case” resonates throughout the club. The crowd is deafeningly loud, screaming praise to the lanky lyricist. On his mic is a diamond-studded “Snoop Dogg” so big it could have come off the belt of a wrestling heavyweight champion.
As his rhymes keep coming, the crowd gets more excited. They’re in for a string of surprises. The first is a tribute to the late Tupac Shakur, who Snoop regards as a dear friend. He asks the crowd, “Ya’ll love Tupac?” then sings the rap legend’s “Hail Mary,” and lighters go up across the venue. The crowd repeats after Snoop. “Tupac, we love you. Tupac, we miss you.” It’s the first instance of fan connection, which grew into the night.
Snoop also brings onstage his uncle “Junebug” from Magnolia, who dances coolly and happily with his nephew and crew. Snoop was in Mississippi visiting family in the first place.
Rather than promoting his new album Ego Trippin’, Snoop drops classic after classic. “187,” “Who Am I (What’s My Name?)” and “Nuthin’ But a G Thang,” take the crowd back to its childhood and teenage years. Middle fingers wave in the air, hands move back and forth like lazy Nazi hails and people sing along. Then they’re hit with the Holy Grail of Snoop’s catalogue.
“How many of you know what my favorite drink is?” Snoop asks.
“Gin and Juice!” the crowd exclaims. The night reaches its pinnacle with the song, people go nuts even though the last call for alcohol was more than an hour ago.
Snoop settles down with “Sensual Eruption,” his latest single, which he dedicates “to the ladies.” His coy presence pops, and the women react giddily.
Snoop leaves the stage, and his crew tells the crowd to yell his name and beckon him back. He comes back decked out in a custom MSU Bulldogs jersey, sporting his name and the number 2.
The final set is one of peace, love and family. Before he departs the stage, he hints at a newfound endearment for Starkville and its people.
“I love you Starkville, Mississippi,” Snoop says. “And let me tell you, this ain’t the last time you gonna see this face.”
After the show, the crowd spilled outside Rick’s.
Robert Pitts, a graduate assistant for the Holmes Cultural Diversity Center, was still soaking the experience in.
“It was great,” Pitts said. “He has a real presence on stage, but I’m not surprised.”
He said his favorite part of the show was the nostalgia, along with Snoop bringing in members of Tha Dogg Pound.
“The best part was when he did his old school music,” he said. “I also like that he brought Kurupt with him.”
Rick Welch, owner of Rick’s Café, said Snoop Dogg’s performance, along with his genuine appreciation of his fans, was one of the most memorable happenings in his venue’s history.
“After the show when he hung around to take a few pictures, I couldn’t believe how nice and sincere he was to all of us. It was, without a doubt, one of the best shows I’ve seen on my stage,” Welch said.
About Snoop’s promise to return, Welch said he’s confident the rapper will keep it.
“I think we showed Snoop and his crew what Southern hospitality was all about,” he said. “When my partner, Seth O’Nan, was taking Snoop back to the hotel after the show Snoop told him that he really enjoyed the show and that he wanted to come back to Rick’s next fall on a home ballgame weekend. He also said he wanted to start playing more in smaller markets to get closer to his fans.

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Jed Pressgrove

Rapper Snoop Dogg made his mark at Rick's Café Tuesday, performing to a packed house and connecting to his fans.