Snoop Dogg & Pharrell's 10 Best Collabs

On May 12th, Snoop Dogg and Pharrell will link up to release their first joint album, BUSH. Although they haven't previously worked on an entire album together, this is far from their first rodeo as a team, as they have a joint hitmaking streak that extends back to The Neptunes' early 2000s heyday.

Snoop and Skateboard P's new tracks "Peaches N Cream" and "So Many Pros" showcase a more funk and R&B-driven sound than we've heard from them before, but their happy-go-lucky, dancefloor-ready vibe is a hallmark of much of the duo's past work. In addition to chart-topping singles, Pharrell's also produced some of Snoop's hardest tracks, with his production team's Latin-influenced sound providing perfect backdrops for The Doggfather's tales of South Central streets patrolled by lowriders. 

Here are their top ten collaborations, ranked in ascending order.

This closing cut from Game's 2012 mixtape California Republic features an interesting blend of G-Funk and operatic backing vocals by The Neptunes, and is effective as the final, weed-clouded chapter of the tape. P really only contributes some distant backing vocals on this, but his and Snoop's hook is fantastic.

Between the years 2002 and 2006, Snoop Dogg experienced a nice little comeback from a slump that involved an ill-advised stint at Master P's No Limit label. He released three albums during that time, and all featured at least two Neptunes productions. Of course, there are better-known tracks than "10 Lil Crips," but even by Pharrell and Chad Hugo's standards, this beat is nuts. Airy R&B guitar chops meet an absolutely skin-crawling bassline, creating a decidedly uneasy palette for Snoop to paint with his foreboding sing-song delivery.

Game's second and final appearance on this list comes courtesy of this groovy Purp & Patron cut. This one has a bare-bones, melodic beat that almost makes it sound like a long-lost Hell Hath No Fury outtake where Malice and Pusha T are replaced by Snoop and Game. But then there's that Kardashian-featuring outro...

2009's Malice N Wonderland is far from Snoop's best album, but it's got some gems, namely "Special." Closing out the mixed-bag project is one of the sweetest-sounding Pharrell compositions to date, with his cooing chorus and backing vocals sounding just perfect over some Wurlitzer keys and pan flute. 

The Neptunes produced a quarter of Snoop's 2004 album R&G: The Masterpiece, and so fittingly, it's one of his finest. The first of the highlights is "Let's Get Blown," a laid back ode to exactly what you'd expect from the title. This is where we start getting into the poppier side of things, but that's never been a problem for these two.

I've gotta tell you, I had no idea what the title of this song meant when I heard it at age 13, but I knew one thing: it jammed. It still does, and features one of Snoop's most recognizable hooks, although it's delivered by Pharrell. This is also one of the best examples of a Snoop track that's amazing despite an almost total lack of substantial lyricism, as he keeps our attention with hilarious little phrases like "What the hell is going on?" or his interpolation of Eminem's "Without Me."

Snoop is really the only reason we've heard soul veteran Charlie Wilson on tracks by Kanye West and Tyler, The Creator. He began collaborating with "Uncle Charlie" back in the '90s, and still does to this day, as evidenced by "So Many Pros." This one's got Charlie harmonizing with Pharrell on a hook that's proven itself immortal years after its release.

"Signs" is basically "Beautiful" on steroids. Pharrell's replaced by the admittedly more talented singer Timberlake, and Charlie's given an instrumental that's even more influenced by old-school R&B to do his thing over. I mean, come on, those Earth Wind & Fire-style horns? Hearing JT sing "Don't fuck with me" in falsetto? All of these guys' careers rarely get better than this. 

By any measure of success, this is Snoop and Pharrell's biggest collab. It's Snoop's only number one hit as a solo artist, and was his first top ten single since 1994's "Gin & Juice." Its video has over 60 million plays on YouTube, and it dropped before the site even launched. Everything about it is iconic, from the opening "Snoooooooop"s, to the clucking sound effect that drives the beat, to the dichotomy between P and Snoop's opening lines ("I'm a nice dude" / "I'm a bad boy"). Someday, this will take "Ring Around the Rosie"'s place in the nursery rhyme canon and be sung by children everywhere.

This isn't the obvious choice, but it's the best one. Snoop's hardest song since "Down For My N's," "Vato" hearkened back to classic L.A. storytelling jams like Warren G's "Regulate" and N.W.A.'s "Gangsta Gangsta" with Snoop talking race relations and police encounters with a surprisingly conscious outlook. The video only emphasizes this, starring Snoop and Cypress Hill's B-Real as the leaders of black and Latino gangs in South Central who unite against a common foe. Below all of this, Chad and Pharrell whip out some of the grimiest harpsichord we've ever heard in rap, and pair it with low-end brass and some wild synths. Add a classic, knocking Neptunes beat to all of that, and we've got ourselves a classic.