Snoop Dogg Is Using His Animated Kids Show to Support LGBTQ+ Families, Says ‘Inclusion Is Powerful’ After ‘Lightyear’ Controversy

Snoop Dogg
Getty Images for BET

Snoop Dogg has partnered with GLAAD to support Spirit Day, the LGBTQ+ youth anti-bullying initiative. As part of the campaign, the rapper sat down with “The Voice” alum Jeremy Beloate — a member of the LGBTQ+ community who was part of Team Snoop on the NBC reality series — for a special Spirit Day conversation. The two discussed their recent collaboration on a new song titled “Love Is Love,” which is featured in Snoop’s animated children’s YouTube series, “Doggyland.”

“It’s a beautiful thing that kids can have parents of all walks and be shown love, to be taught what love is…being able to have parents from all walks of life, whether it be two fathers, two mothers, whatever it is, love is the key,” Snoop said in the conversation.

In the children’s show, Beloate voices a puppy named Zippy, who joins the Doggyland pups to sing “Love Is Love,” a song that celebrates the love shared among families. Snoop, meanwhile, voices Bow Wizzle, one of the show’s main characters.

“Our parents are different / No two are the same / But the one thing that’s for certain is the love won’t change,” the pups sing, as several same-sex couples appear on screen. “Families are special / They are so unique / Everybody’s got a purpose, more than what you see / We love you, parents / We love you so.”

Snoop said in a statement: “At the end of the day, it’s all about love — that’s what we’re teachin’ the kids with ‘Love Is Love.’ Partnering with GLAAD for Spirit Day just felt right, because spreading love and respect for everybody is what real gangstas do. We’re showin’ the next generation that kindness is cool, inclusion is powerful, and love always wins.”

Snoop’s partnership with GLAAD, along with his new song “Love Is Love,” comes months after the rapper made controversial comments about the Pixar film “Lightyear.”

On an August episode of the “It’s Giving” podcast, Snoop Dogg said he felt “scared” to bring his grandchildren to the movies after watching “Lightyear,” the 2022 “Toy Story” spinoff that includes a scene featuring two women raising a child — along with Disney and Pixar’s first same-sex kiss.

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“They’re like, ‘She had a baby — with another woman,’” Snoop recalled. “Well, my grandson, in the middle of the movie is like, ‘Papa Snoop? How she have a baby with a woman? She’s a woman!’”

Snoop remembered thinking, “Oh shit, I didn’t come in for this shit. I just came to watch the goddamn movie.’”

“‘They just said, she and she had a baby — they’re both women. How does she have a baby?’” he recalled his grandson pressing.

He added at the time: “It fucked me up. I’m like, scared to go to the movies. Y’all throwing me in the middle of shit that I don’t have an answer for… It threw me for a loop. I’m like, ‘What part of the movie was this?’ These are kids. We have to show that at this age? They’re going to ask questions. I don’t have the answer.”

During his recent conversation with Beloate, Snoop explained that “Love Is Love” is “teaching parenthood, it’s teaching the situation that kids and the world is going through right now in a beautiful way — through song, dance, melody — and just trying to get more understanding, clarity, on how we live and the way we live. And I felt like this music is a beautiful bridge to bring an understanding.”

He continued, “This is a program that we’ve been doing for years, where we involve kids, and these are things that kids have questions about. So now, hopefully, we can help answer these questions and help them to live a happy life and understand that love is love.”

Watch Snoop and Beloate’s full conversation below:

From Variety US