| Paid tha Cost to Be da Boss | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | Snoop Dogg |
| Cover: | Paidthacosttobedabo$$.jpg |
| Border: | yes |
| Recorded: | 2001–2002 |
| Studio: | Doggystyle Records Studio, Diamond Bar, Los Angeles, California |
| Genre: | Hip hop |
| Length: | 78:58 |
| Prev Year: | 2001 |
| Next Title: | The Hard Way |
| Next Year: | 2004 |
Paid tha Cost to Be da Boss (stylized as Paid tha Cost to Be da Bo$$) is the sixth studio album by American rapper Snoop Dogg. It was released on November 26, 2002, by his Doggystyle label, alongside Priority and Capitol Records. Following his departure from the No Limit Records, he later signed a recording contract to Capitol through Priority Records. The album was supported by two singles, both featuring Pharrell: "From tha Chuuuch to da Palace" and "Beautiful", the latter also featuring Charlie Wilson.
The album debuted at number 12 on the US Billboard 200, selling 174,000 copies in its first week, and received platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). To date, it has sold over 1,500,000 copies worldwide.
This album marked the beginning of Snoop's long-lasting association with Pharrell and The Neptunes.[1] The album's lead single "From tha Chuuuch to da Palace", produced by The Neptunes and featuring an uncredited guest appearance from Pharrell, was released on October 15, 2002. The song's music video was directed by Diane Martel, under the alias Bucky Chrome.
The album's second single, "Beautiful" featuring Pharrell and Charlie Wilson, also produced by The Neptunes, was released on January 28, 2003. The music video for "Beautiful", which featured Pharrell but omitted Charlie Wilson, was directed by Chris Robinson in Brazil, which helped the single to become a hit on the Billboard charts. In a retrospective critique on the song, Pharrell would later admit he didn't think the song would be a hit. "[Snoop] really loved ‘Beautiful.’ I didn’t get ‘Beautiful,’ mainly because I was singing on there flat as fuck and I just didn’t hear it. I thought it was a fun record. And then we put Charlie Wilson on it and I was like man Charlie sounding amazing on this, and this feels good to me, but no one is ever going to go for this."[2]
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.
Paid tha Cost to Be da Boss debuted at number 12 on the US Billboard 200, selling 174,000 copies in its first week.[5] [6] In November 2004, the album sales, where it has sold 1,210,000 copies in the United States.[7]
On March 24, 2003, a lawsuit was filed against Snoop Dogg by a man who claimed that his life was endangered after the rapper had included a 50-second phone message featuring the plaintiff's voice on the album's last track, "Pimp Slapp'd", a diss track directed at then-Death Row Records CEO Suge Knight. The man, identified only as John Doe for security reasons, had left the voice message for Snoop Dogg in October 2002, unaware of the intention of its inclusion on the album. 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, and stated in court papers that he had been threatened verbally several times and feared for his and his mother's lives due to Knight's close proximity, as both he and Knight resided in Compton, California, at the time.
On February 3, 2004, the lawsuit was dismissed for common law appropriation of voice and intentional infliction of emotional distress, under the ruling that privacy cannot be maintained while leaving a message on another's recording device.[8] [9] [10]
Sample credits
Credits adapted from Allmusic.[11]
| Peak position | |
| Australian Albums (ARIA)[12] | 55 |
|---|---|
| Australian Urban Albums (ARIA)[13] | 11 |
| Canadian Albums (Nielsen SoundScan)[14] | 34 |
| Canadian R&B Albums (Nielsen SoundScan)[15] | 8 |
| UK Albums (Official Charts Company)[16] | 64 |
| UK R&B Albums (Official Charts Company)[17] | 14 |
| Position | ||
| Canadian R&B Albums (Nielsen SoundScan)[18] | 46 | |
|---|---|---|
| Canadian Rap Albums (Nielsen SoundScan)[19] | 23 |
| Position | ||
| US Billboard 200[20] | 60 | |
|---|---|---|
| US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums (Billboard)[21] | 20 |