Snoop Dogg wants to start hip-hop competition show, launch his own supermarket chain

Although the slow spread of singing competition shows has ensured that no middling talent shall go untelevised, somehow no one has thought to make an American Idol or X-Factor targeted specifically at hip-hop—or at least, no one since MC Serch’s The White Rapper Show and his follow-up, Miss Rap Supreme, which VH1 gave the gas face to back in 2008. So that leaves the door wide open for someone like Snoop Dogg to come in and drop a hot marketing pitch like he recently did in the U.K., where he told reporters that he was currently searching for a network to back a show “straight directed to the hood… at people with no money, just talent” where he finds “America’s hottest hood artists.”

Of course, while there’s almost no way that idea won’t soon become a reality, given the current climate, it’s hard to tell if Snoop was totally serious about owning it: After all, he also spent the meeting talking up his plans for branching out into his own supermarket chain, a dream apparently based entirely on his coining the word “Snoopermarkets.” And of course, he made the announcement only after keeping the assembled press corps waiting for over an hour in a London strip club, before finally “appearing on stage amid clouds of smoke and a bevy of skimpily-clad pole dancers,” so it was hardly a prospectus with accompanying PowerPoint presentation we’re talking about here. Still, don’t be surprised if he does it. On the scale of “Ways In Which Snoop Dogg Has Transformed Himself Into A Living Brand,” hosting a singing competition show barely even registers at this point.