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Snoop Dogg is an advocate of the Writers Guild of America and its current strike over compensation for writers. As an artist familiar with the downsides of streaming models, he shared his opinion on the issue of low pay across the board.
“[Artists] need to figure it out the same way the writers are figuring it out,” Snoop said during a panel with Variety’s executive music editor, Shirley Halperin, and Gamma’s Larry Jackson. “The writers are striking because [of] streaming, they can’t get paid. Because when it’s on the platform, it’s not like in the box office.”
“I don’t understand how the f*** you get paid off of that s***,” he continued. “Somebody explain to me how you can get a billion streams and not get a million dollars? … That’s the main gripe with a lot of us artists is that we do major numbers … but it don’t add up to the money. Like, where the f*** is the money?”
Snoop is the latest artist to express his support for the WGA and its members, whose strike started Tuesday after it failed to reach an agreement with The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers about writers compensation in the streaming era. Brian Tyree Henry and Quinta Brunson are also supportive of the protest.
The strike has led to the halt of production for many shows, including NBC’s Saturday Night Live. As a result, Lil Uzi Vert‘s musical performance, set for the May 6 episode, has been canceled.
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