Snoop Doggy Dogg's 'Doggystyle' debuts at #1 on the Billboard 200
Death Row / Interscope issues Calvin Broadus's debut LP — Dre-produced top-to-bottom, with Daz, Kurupt, Nate Dogg, and the Dogg Pound rounding out the bench. *Doggystyle* enters the Billboard 200 at #1 — the first debut album by any artist to do so. First-week sales clear 800,000.
Why it matters
*Doggystyle* is the commercial confirmation of what *The Chronic* had argued artistically a year earlier: West Coast G-funk is the dominant pop-rap sound of the mid-90s. The #1 debut is also the moment the major-label / Soundscan-era commercial system recognizes hip-hop as a top-of-the-week-window genre. Within five years, hip-hop debuts at #1 will be routine rather than exceptional.
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