Snoop Dogg Biopic Cast Grows: Tupac, Suge Knight, Warren G and More Join Universal’s ‘Snoop’

The Snoop Dogg Biopic’s Buzzing Cast Just Got Even Bigger — Tupac, Suge Knight and More Are Locked In

Universal is quietly assembling one of the most stacked music biopic casts in years, and another round of names just landed. The studio’s upcoming film about Snoop Dogg — the definitive, R-rated look at the West Coast rap icon’s climb from Long Beach to global stardom — announced four more additions on Wednesday, and they’re all key figures from the Snoop Dogg universe.

Here’s the new wave: Laya DeLeon Hayes will play Shante Broadus, Snoop’s wife; Olly Sholotan takes on Kurupt; Corey Champagne is Nate Dogg; and Jonica Booth is The Lady of Rage. Each of those names is a heavyweight within the Dogg Pound and Death Row family, so casting them properly was never going to be an afterthought.

A Cast That Reads Like a Death Row Yearbook

The new additions cap off a wave of announcements that have been steadily filling out the film’s ensemble over the past week. Earlier this week, Camron Jones was locked in to play Tupac Shakur — a role carrying enormous weight given Pac’s status as the most iconic figure in West Coast rap history and his close, complicated friendship with Snoop. Around the same time came word that Tre Hale would play Suge Knight, the larger-than-life and controversial Death Row Records co-founder, while Lauren London joined as Beverly Tate, Snoop’s mother.

Factor in Jonathan Daviss in the title role as Snoop himself, Algee Smith as Warren G (Snoop’s cousin and the man who famously connected him to Dr. Dre), and Myles Bullock as Dr. Dre — the producer behind the G-funk sound that defined the West Coast’s early-90s takeover — and you have a cast that covers nearly every essential player in that Southern California rap ecosystem. Woven through all of it is the sharpest thread of the whole story: Snoop’s friendship with Tupac, a bond that grew out of the same Long Beach and L.A. scene and became one of the defining relationships in hip-hop history.

Get a sense of the era with Straight Outta Compton, the N.W.A. biopic that set the template for this kind of ensemble-driven hip-hop origin story.

Who’s Behind the Camera — and the Music

The creative team is just as intentional. Director Craig Brewer, who helmed Hustle & Flow and the gorgeous Elvis deep cut Song Sung Blue, is working from his own rewrite of Joe Robert Cole’s original script. Brewer has a proven track record with music-first storytelling — Hustle & Flow remains one of the few Southern rap dramas that actually got the texture of the struggle right, and it’s that same grounded sensibility that should serve a Snoop Dogg story well.

Behind the scenes, Snoop himself is producing alongside Sara Ramaker, president of Death Row Pictures, with Imagine Entertainment’s Brian Grazer and Allan Mandelbaum also producing and Michael Beugg and Jeb Brody executive producing. That means the man at the center of the story has a real hand in how it’s told — no small thing for a subject as protective of his legacy as Snoop has been.

A New Chapter for Death Row Pictures

There’s a deeper story at play here, too. Snoop is the first project under Death Row Pictures’ overall deal with NBCUniversal. Long known as the undisputed visual powerhouse of 90s gangsta rap, Death Row Records is trying to write its next chapter as a film and television company, and this biopic is the opening statement. It’s a smart piece of positioning: turn the label’s most famous figure into a crossover film event, then build a slate from there. If it works, expect a wave of music-IP-driven movies and shows to follow.

For a star who has already made the jump from records to comedy specials and game shows — like The Joker’s Wild reboot or the anthology Hood of Horror that Snoop has long dabbled in — a definitive biopic was always the natural landing spot.

What to Expect When It Arrives

The movie is targeting a theatrical release in the summer of 2027, and it’s shaping up as a genuine event for anyone who came of age on 90s hip-hop. The overlap with NBCUniversal’s other music-period productions points to a house style: careful world-building, reverence for the source material, and a willingness to lean into the complications rather than sand them down.

That’s exactly what a Snoop Dogg biopic needs. His story isn’t a clean one — it’s got the double-album highs, the murder trial, the pivot to family man, the years-long run as one of pop culture’s most omnipresent personalities. Squeezing all of that into a single feature means making hard choices, and Brewer’s history suggests he’ll favor character over hagiography. That’s the right instinct for a film that wants to be taken seriously and still fill seats.

Why This Matters for the Music Biopic Wave

We’re deep into a golden age of music biopics, and Snoop has a chance to stand out from the pack. Where a lot of the genre’s recent entries lean into a single tragic arc or a cleaned-up redemption story, this one is built around a singular artist negotiating fame, loyalty and survival in real time — over decades, across music, TV and an endless run of viral moments. Snoop isn’t a figure who can be filed away as “the tortured genius who burned out.” He’s one of the few mainstream superstars whose influence has held steady for thirty years, which makes his biopic a different and arguably trickier kind of assignment.

It’s also a reminder of just how long the public appetite for musical drama has run. Music-industry sagas have been a reliable draw across both film and television — the kind of ensemble-driven, label-world storytelling that shows like Empire tapped into at their peak. Snoop has a chance to capture some of that same energy while grounding it in the specific, messy reality of one man’s rise. And with Death Row’s legacy attached, the stakes feel higher than your average jukebox biopic.

The cast alone gives you reason to believe it will work. Putting a genuine ensemble — not just one big star surrounded by filler — at the service of a story this dense is how you end up with a film worth rewatching. If the remaining pieces fall into place the way these have, Snoop is shaping up to be one of the most anticipated biopics on the slate, and a proper celebration of an artist whose influence has never really gone away.