Snoop Dogg has lived many lives. In the last decade or so the rapper has, among other things, voiced Maurice in The Garfield Movie (2024); embarked on a temporary personality transformation, styling himself as Snoop Lion for a few years after a trip to Jamaica; starred in a Just Eat advert; become a certified American football coach; and solicited advice from a Welsh farmer known for growing huge vegetables (and apparently smoked weed with him, as revealed by the farmer in one of Rakewell’s all-time favourite interviews). He has set the Guinness World Record for making the largest Paradise cocktail; taken up the role of the United States’ unofficial Olympic mascot in Paris; and become a co-owner and investor of the Championship football club Swansea City. Now, for his latest turn, Snoop has become a certified artist’s muse. Who said that you can’t teach an old Dogg new tricks?
The artist in question is Erica Kovitz, who has produced a series of seven works made from the roaches, or remnants of joints, smoked by the Doggfather himself. These recently went to auction on the platform 32auctions – organised by The Joint Venture, which Kovitz co-founded – and made $148,100 in total. All the works are on square canvases and feature Snoop’s signature. The most expensive piece, which sold for $70,000, is Snoop Doggy Dogg Genesis Burn, which is made up of Snoop’s LAPD mugshot from 1993 overlaid with some marijuana ash and a roach and signed by Snoop using his original Snoop Doggy Dogg signature. Kovitz says that Snoop saved his roaches specifically for this project, which in itself is a minor miracle – you’d think that someone who smokes such a large quantity of marijuana that he has had to employ a full-time personal joint roller might be a little too out of it to remember such a task.
The works trade on their connection to an icon of contemporary pop culture, of course, but cannabis has a strong art-historical lineage. Archaeological evidence has shown that humans have been using smoking paraphernalia for millennia: in 2013 a pair of golden bongs used by Scythians to smoke marijuana and opium were discovered in the Caucasus mountains. The Hash Marihuana & Hemp Museum in Amsterdam has a decent holding of Old Masters, including a jolly tavern scene by the 17th-century painter David Teniers the Younger and a rather aspirational work by Adriaen de Lelie, A Quiet Smoke (1800), which shows an excellently dressed man sitting at his table puffing away. Kovitz’s artworks may well end up there in future; she certainly thinks the art will endure. ‘A roach isn’t an ending – it’s a signature,’ she said recently. ‘A quiet crown on a moment. A breath between empires.’ An interesting statement – and one that probably makes more sense if you’re stoned.
