Inspired by the success of Lodi Dodi, Snoop updates another Golden Era favourite, the Biz Markie classic, Vapors.

We get the same stories of being fronted on when poor and jocked when rich but with Snoop, Nate Dogg, Daz and Warren G instead of Biz, TJ Swan, Big Daddy Kane, and Cool V.

“Vapors” represents the ironic life story of Biz Markie and his fellow Juice Crew members TJ Swan, Big Daddy Kane, and Cutmaster Cool V. It is said in the song that their early lives were miserable and hard, they were unwanted, hated, and disrespected. Now that they are famous musicians, people who disrespected them in their childhood are “catching the Vapors”, depicting a selfish desire to now associate with them due to their fame, possessions and lifestyles.

Big Daddy Kane talked about “The Vapors”:

The moral of the song: you can achieve your goals. Biz had this whole concept of people catching the vapors. It all started about a joke he was making about a girl who went to high school with me and now that we was doing shows she followed me around the mall asking me to take her to Latin Quarters. Biz was walking behind her constantly saying, ‘She caught the vapors, she caught the vapors.’

He told me about the idea for the song and he wanted to talk about people catching the vapors. People that was frontin’ at first and acting funny and all of a sudden they wanna be in your corner and be down with you. I remembered [TJ] Swan telling me a story about how he worked for UPS and how chicks wanted to front then, and I remember when Cool V was working for a record store in Elizabeth, New Jersey. I was basically taking real life stories and showing how it was and how it changed.

Snoop Dogg created his own version of “Vapors” for his 1996 sophomore album Tha Doggfather. Both versions sample “Papa Don’t Take No Mess” by James Brown.

Guru flips his arrest on gun possession charges into a positive message for the youth.

DJ Premier provided some background information about this track:

This whole song is a real true story. Even the voicemail you hear was real. Guru had a late session all the way up to the time he had to get ready to head to L.A. And at that time, someone would always have a pistol packed, even if it were just a recording session. Back then in those days, having a pistol on you wasn’t a big deal. People could see you in the studio for a lengthy amount of time, think you got money because you’re making records, and try to rob you as you’re leaving. So you had to be protected.

Guru ran home after this late recording session to grab one of the suitcases that he had already packed. It just so happened he grabbed the one suitcase with his pistol in it. So when he tried to get pass security with a gun in his carry on, you got caught. I had hired a criminal attorney at the time for some other criminal stuff. We have an entertainment lawyer too, of course, but this guy was there to help us with criminal stuff and that’s what That track just matched the feeling of the whole ordeal. Guru had once told me that he wanted to do a song about this situation with the gun and the song captured the right emotion we thought.

Later redone by Madlib as “LAX to JFK”. Both songs sample “Time To Break Down” by The Supremes.

Beat by Mndsgn.

The beat is “Draggin” by Knxwledge.