Snoop Dogg, Janelle Monáe, A$AP Rocky + More Tell OKP TV What They Were Doing At 15
When Snoop Dogg was 15 years old, he was still "in the clay stages"--not yet a fully-molded player. Ali Shaheed Muhammad was working on A Tribe Called Quest demos, Biz Markie was sneaking bites off of roast beef sandwiches in an Arby's kitchen and Mannie Fresh was mostly masturbating, by his own admission (to put that in perspective, it could have been even more embarrassing; comic Hannibal Buress had not yet figured out how to masturbate correctly yet at 15).
If that seems like too much information, these reminiscences (and more!) are all part of a special video interview series marking year-long Okayplayer's 15th Anniversary celebration--or maybe birthday bashment, since we prefer to picture ourselves as rebellious adolescents rather than a middle-aged married couple. To get some perspective on how to handle our corporate teen years and what the hell we wanna be when we grow up, we enlisted the advice of some our favorite artists. In fact, in addition to Snoop, Biz, Fresh, Hannibal and Mr. Muhammad, we also asked for 'when I was 15' stories from A$AP Rocky; Janelle Monáe; Raekwon; Bun B; Wyclef Jean; Gary Clark, Jr.; Daley; Talib Kweli; Daryl Jenifer of Bad Brains; A$AP Ferg; Aloe Blacc; Action Bronson; Just Blaze and Big Freedia the Queen Diva, best to believe-a...!
Their answers to that vexing question "What were you doing at age 15?" will sometimes surprise you and sometimes not (yes, Big Freedia was bouncing) but almost all will delight/inspire/titillate you and most of all make you laugh--and we say that with some confidence because that's the reaction we got when we debuted this video in front of some 5,000 music fans in Central Park who came out to see Blood Orange and Moses Sumney sing summer to a close at the final show in our 5-concert SummerStage series this past Saturday!
Watch below to find out what your favorite artist was doing at age 15:
