The Snoop Dogg biopic has cast its Notorious B.I.G., with a famous son set to play Big Poppa.
As Variety reports, SwayvoTwain — the musician born Michael D’Angelo Archer II to late legendary artists D’Angelo and Angie Stone — will portray Biggie in the film, which is expected to hit theaters in August 2027. While Archer has been regularly releasing music as SwayvoTwain over the past few years, this will be his first major acting role after scoring a small part in the 2022 straight-to-streaming film, Strictly for the Streets vol. 2.
SwayvoTwain celebrated the announcement on Instagram, sharing a montage of recent videos, including a short clip of him hanging out with Snoop himself. “It’s all good baby, BABYYY,” he wrote in the captioning, a nod to the opening lines of the Notorious B.I.G. classic, “Juicy.”
It’s unclear how big of a role SwayvoTwain will have in the Snoop biopic. Biggie and Snoop were friendly, but not super close, and, geographically speaking, they sat on opposite ends of the infamous East Coast/West Coast rap feud of the Nineties. But their paths crossed on a couple of occasions, and though there was mutual respect and admiration, their relationship was marred somewhat by the tensions of the day.
Speaking with with Fatman Scoop a few years ago, Snoop explained the origins of his song with Tha Dogg Pound, “New York, New York,” long considered a Notorious B.I.G. diss because it used a beat DJ Pooh made for Biggie for a St. Ides commercial. Because B.I.G. wasn’t using the beat for anything but the commercial, Snoop asked Pooh if he could use it because “we fucked with Biggie and we liked Biggie.”
But when Snoop and Tha Dogg Pound flew to New York City to film the video, Snoop claimed Biggie went on the radio and revealed where they were filming; not long after, some shots were fired near the set, but no one was hurt. Despite this, Snoop didn’t seem to hold anything against Biggie, chalking it up to the nature of the feud. He then revealed the two rappers met not long after Tupac was murdered.
“I can look in his eyes and I can see that he hurt,” Snoop said of Biggie’s reaction to Tupac’s death. “He didn’t even have to say it… This is not a man that’s happy or glamorized; this is his friend that’s dead. They had a misunderstanding and he could never get no justice for his emotions — but he’s showing me his emotions.” (Snoop added that he and Biggie never discussed “the Brooklyn incident” because “what’s understood don’t need to be talked about.”)
A few months later, Biggie invited Snoop to visit him in the studio, where he played an early version of “Somebody’s Gotta Die,” which opens with the lyric, “I’m sitting in the crib, dreaming about Lear jets and coupes/The way Salt shoops, and how to sell records like Snoop — oops!”
Speaking to Rolling Stone in 2021, Snoop said, “It was like the utmost respect for him to play that record for me. For me to know that he thought that much of me to put that shit on his album… That was growth. He had grown to a position of, ‘I’m at peace. I love Snoop. Snoop showed me love, let me show him a little love back. Trying to end this shit.’ He knew that was an olive branch.”
Though those encounters may have been brief, both would certainly provide good fodder for a biopic. Snoop is set to star Jonathan Daviss in the lead role, with Myles Bullock as Dr. Dre, Camron Jones as Tupac, Tre Hale as Suge Knight, Lauren London as Snoop’s mother Beverly Tate, and Laya DeLeon Hayes as his wife, Shante.Craig Brewer, who helmed Hustle and Flow and Song Sung Blue, is directing the film.
