Doggy’s Angels

The formation of Snoop Doggs record label, Doggystyle Records gained immediate notoriety with the platinum success of its first release, Tha Eastsidaz. Next up to bat, representing the west coast, is the rap legends female formed trio of MCs, Doggys Angels, made up of Big Chan, Coniyac and Kola. Although most male-inspired girl groups serve as an ornament on their male controller, these girls are here to let you know things are quite different with their group.

“We all had our own individual personalities and characteristics before we even got in the group, and we held our own names,” says Kola. “I already had a name locally in Long Beach, Big Chan already had a name from being in a group, and Coniyac as well. We came too far to not be taken seriously.” Their Doggystyle/TVT Records self-titled debut album is fully-loaded with heat guaranteed to erase any inkling of the stereotypical girl-group passiveness. The first single, “Baby if Youre Ready,” is a catchy shout-out to the brothers “to let them know its real women out here that do have a brothers back,” explains Coniyac. “We know they all aint 100% angels,” says Big Chan with no pun intended. “But if you can at least be real, we can deal with you. Thats basically what its saying.” Before Snoop opened the Pearly Gates for his three angels, Coniyac and Kola were part of a local female rap group based in South Central. “We were trying to do a West-coast female unity type of thing and it didnt really work out,” says Coniyac. “Everybody wasnt with hanging in there to see if it was really gonna happen. But me and Kola stayed in touch and I said, Me and you can do this.

The name goesConiyac and Kola, done deal.” “We hooked up with some guys who had a little production crew,” adds Kola. “Jellyroll, one of the producers, took some of our music to Snoop because he was working with him at that time. Snoop was already planning on signing Big Chan, so he wound up hooking all three of us up.” The hookup wasnt so easy. The ladies went through a tense audition process at Snoops studio, an experience Kola describes as “cutthroat.” “When we got up there, it was several girls there. I looked at Coniyac, she looked at me and it was like man, its every man for himself. Good luck.” Snoop threw on a beat and instructed the ladies to get in the booth and come up with a verse. “I broke my neck to get in there first,” laughs Kola. “Everybody just started following, but everybody didnt make it on the song.

By the time it got to the middle of the song, a few of the girls didnt even wanna get on the song no more. Half of em gave up, and there was some top notch names that wereI aint gonna speak on it, but there was some top notch names in that room. We left, and the very next day, Snoop called and was like, I want yall to come back.” Once the three were chosen, it didnt take long for them to get on the same page. “Thats whats so scary because it happened immediately,” says Big Chan. “We was just doing songs and Snoop would leave us in the studio and be like, Yall do yall thing. Hed come back and the song would be done, the hook would be done, the intro, the outro, and it was just happening. Before we knew it, we were a group.” On their debut album is “Please Believe It,” a salsa-inspired track featuring Layzie Bone, “Angel in Me,” which Kola says describes the group best, and “Frontline,” the first song they did outside of Snoops studio-presence, to name a few. The album is produced by some of west coasts finest such as Battlecat, Meech Wells, Fredwreck and JellyRoll. Making independent creative decisions is important for these ladies in order to prove their status as more than just Snoops trio of eye-candy. “Snoop respecting us enough to put us in this game should be enough to take us seriously,” says Kola. “We write all our own songs, I mean, we serving half the male groups thats out right now. I listen to some of these people thats out right now and Im like, we serving em. So I feel like theyre gonna have to take us seriously or theyre gonna get served.”