On this week’s episode of BagFuel, E$SO and Hynaken chopped it up with Omar Gooding, 44-year old actor and rapper, who happens to be the younger brother of Cuba Gooding Jr., as well as his music producer ATG. The two are fresh off a release, and discuss Omar’s journey with music, how his acting career was beneficial, the influence of east and west coast rappers, and filming Baby Boy with Snoop Dogg in 2001.
Following the release of Omar and ATG’s new record “Entourage,” Hynaken commented that he enjoys the fact that he’s able to hear the words in the song in contrast to some rappers today who “mumble.” Omar, instantly fired up about the topic, shared the importance of “diction” and how his natural gift gave him an advantage as both an actor and a rapper.
“I have very clear diction which got me a lot of work. I was able to go into these auditions, speak a little clearer, and read their lines and I would beat people out so forth and so on,” Gooding said. “That carried on into my music.”
Gooding continued, citing the 90’s group Fu-Schnickens as the artists who made him want to dissect words and focus on annunciation in songs. However, he also noted that Tupac and Biggie were two of the most influential people for him when it came to navigating the music industry.
“Tupac and Biggie… that was it for us,” Omar said. “For me, I went from east coast roots, west coast rap, and then Tupac and Biggie came together and that was it for me. I knew my direction as far as hip-hop.”
On the topic of west coast rappers, Hynaken joked by asking if Snoop Dogg had ever forgiven Omar for how he “bodied” him in the John Singleton-directed film, Baby Boy, and praised him for his acting skills in the role of Sweetpea.
“When I got that script looking at it backward and forward, that’s the role that I would take no matter what, hands down,” Omar said while reminiscing on the movie. The rapper went on to say he would have never taken the lead role, because the character he played had so many parallels to his life that many people don’t know about.
Omar continued to discuss Snoop’s role in the film, revealing, “We filmed the movie, showed it to a couple of audiences, and the criticism that they kept giving was why did we kill Snoop Dogg so badly? What y’all saw was reshoots. We reshot the scene and killed him a little kinder and added shit that people in the movie didn’t see.” Gooding explained, “The whole prayer scene, the drive-by that happened at Sweetpea’s house, none of that was in the original movie. We added that so we had real reason to run him down.”
Watch the full BagFuel episode below.
