Paid tha Cost to Be da Boss

Singles

The album's lead single, "From tha Chuuuch to da Palace" featuring guest vocals from Pharrell, was released on October 15, 2002. The song's production was handled by The Neptunes. The music video for "From tha Chuuuch to da Palace", was directed by Diane Martel, under the alias Bucky Chrome.

The album's second single, "Beautiful" featuring Pharrell and Charlie Wilson, was released on January 28, 2003. The song also was produced by The Neptunes. The music video for "Beautiful" featuring Pharrell and Charlie Wilson (who he did not make it to the video), was directed by Chris Robinson and it was released in 2003. The video took place in Brazil. The video helped exceeded the song to become a hit on the Billboard's charts.

Release

It was announced to be re-packaged for the album, with six of these pre-released versions of different album covers, but only several tracks were not to be included on each. Snoop's also contains two-disc's DVD, called Boss Playa: A Day in the Life of Bigg Snoop Dogg; including the first disc featuring three music videos for "Boss Playa", "Pimp Slapp'd" (where both of them, were directed by Pook Brown), and "That's the Shit"; the second disc is a DVD, named "Doggystyle Porn", which features the song, titled "You Like Doin It Too". However, these tracks were later featured in an unreleased project version of the album.

Reception

Controversy

On March 24, 2003, a lawsuit was filed against Snoop Dogg, in which a Californian man (who kept his anonymity for security reasons) claimed that his life was endangered, after the rapper had included, without his permission, a 50-second phone message the plaintiff had left in the album's last track "Pimp Slapp'd". The message was about making fun of then-Death Row Records' CEO Suge Knight (who was an ex-producer for Snoop Dogg), while Snoop was in jail at the time for the MGM arena mayhem, was supporting Snoop Dogg in the rivalry between him and Knight. The man identified as John Doe, leaving a voice message for Snoop last October, and for months was unaware that it had to be included as part of a song on the album.

After hearing the track himself, the plaintiff called Snoop and inquired about the message's inclusion, to which he replied "because it was so real." John Doe, who was identified on the answering machine as Jim Bob, insisted the album be recalled and cancelled for distribution in its current form. The plaintiff lives in Compton as does Knight, who is known to still have affiliations with the Bloods gang. He stated in court papers that he had been threatened verbally several times and that he fears his and his mother's life due to Knight's close proximity. The judge dismissed a lawsuit for common law appropriation of voice and intentional infliction of emotional distress on February 3, 2004 because privacy can not be maintained while leaving a message on another's recording device.

Commercial performance

Paid tha Cost to Be da Boss debuted at number 12 on the US Billboard 200, selling 174,000 copies in its first week. In November 2004, the album sales, where it has sold 1,210,000 copies in the United States.

Track listing

Personnel

Credits adapted from Allmusic.