Seven Four Questions with Snoop Dogg on the Set of 'Dogg After Dark'

LA has a diverse cast of characters. Whether it's the characters with stirring stories or interesting occupations or the people who are just simply characters, this town has them all. In an effort to get to know some of those characters a little better, we've created "Seven Questions with..."

Today's subject is Snoop Dogg.

Due to time constraints, however, we were only able to ask Snoop four questions. Since he's a busy man (rap icon, TV star, business man, youth football coach) and he's Snoop Dogg, we definitely aren't mad at him.

We caught up with him at The Kress, the multi-level Hollywood hotspot that Snoop and MTV have taken over for tapings of his new talk show "Dogg After Dark," which airs Tuesday nights at 9pm on MTV. When we say "taken over," we mean it. The rapper's got his family in the kitchen cooking up some delicious chicken wings, while members of the show's writing staff are sitting in the restaurant's metallic gold booths planning out the night's taping.

Also, there was no shortage of females at The Kress, they too had taken the place over. These young ladies brought their A-game; dressed to impress the Dogg and his television audience. We had to walk through a sea of skirts and tiny dresses to obtain our credentials.

Snoop, who had just finished a plate of chicken wings that were in his words, "good as a motherfucker," allowed us to sit down and talk with him before having to change clothes for the show.

The show, "Dogg After Dark," has a different vibe to it than you'd expect from a talk show. How did you come up with the concept?
It's something that we've really wanted to do for a long time. As far as wanting to do a show that had this type of feel to it we just didn't really have the right type of network who could give us what we needed to get it done. Then MTV came along and it just felt right. It's always been on mind to do something that looked like this show, that felt like this show. There wasn't nothing like this on TV. I am hoping the people tune in and love the show and we get the chance to give them more episodes and it will be a big hit.

The Paris Hilton freestyle from last week's show gotten a great deal of buzz on the Internet. What was it like to witness that in person?
She do what she do. That's my homegirl, first and foremost. I support everything she do. One thing I do is support anyone who has a dream and they're trying to make that dream come true. She's a friend of mine. I love her spirit and how she get down. She came on the show free spirited and did something she never did on a TV show before. She just gave the world a dose of what she's trying to do.

You have never been afraid to show your lighter side and your sense of humor. Do you think that hip-hop's ability to show that it can have a sense of humor has helped with the genre's mainstream success?
Definitely. I mean because people aren't afraid to deal with rappers. You know, when they see that we have a human side and we make you laugh and we we can laugh it makes you feel comfortable enough to, you know, give us the opportunity to play in the movie with you, do things that are different and diverse, give us shoe deals and record deals and owning NBA franchises and things of that nature. We're getting gigantic deals and opportunities that rappers normally weren't accustomed to getting. But now we're more approachable and accessible.

What can we expect on your new album?
On my new album, Malice in Wonderland you can expect Snoop Dogg to do what he normally do. Make good music, music that feels good to me. Music that's diverse and different, that's not like anything else that's out. Music that's trendsetting, music that will just make you feel good. This record we've been trying to get into the rock element. That world has always welcomed me and always appreciated me and I never really gave up one or two songs on my album for them but I just always wanted have those kind of songs so I can perform that for my audience. I can go into something that feels like a rock song, because that feel, that rock feel is beautiful. It feels good.

Photo courtesy of MTV