No, it is absolutely not what you think it is. But also, it kind of is.
In 2016, Snoop Dogg released an album titled ‘Coolaid.’ If the name conjures images of primary colors, cartoon mascots, and after-school snack times, you’re not alone. However, this was not an album targeted at children—at least not intentionally. It was, per official classification, a return to Snoop’s West Coast hip-hop roots. But it was also called ‘Coolaid.’ The juxtaposition writes its own punchline.
The album cover features an illustrated Snoop Dogg styled as the Kool-Aid Man’s chill cousin, stepping out of a cartoon convenience store with a lean so relaxed it poses real orthopedic questions. He’s surrounded by comic-style graphics like “SNOOP DOGG PRESENTS” and what appears to be a sentient juice cup smiling in approval. The entire image is an exercise in cheerful confusion. This is doubly confounding because the album’s lyrical content is, to put it diplomatically, not PG.
Tracks include collaborators like Too $hort and E-40, which in hip-hop terms is the equivalent of inviting your rowdiest uncles over and then insisting it’s a family-friendly cookout. It’s worth noting that ‘Coolaid’ was Snoop’s fourteenth studio album, meaning that after decades in the music industry and a catalog expansive enough to merit academic study, he consciously chose to name his latest installment after a brightly colored sugar beverage associated with elementary school birthday parties.
Despite its name, ‘Coolaid’ is not a moral lesson set to music, nor does it feature educational interludes. There are no skits involving cartoon fruit, unless one applies a highly metaphorical reading to the lyrics on “Kush Ups.” The album, in short, has nothing to do with children except for the fact that its branding sounds legally adjacent to something on PBS Kids.
When asked in interviews about the project, Snoop Dogg explained it was meant to reflect his “old-school flavor” with a “new twist”—which, coincidentally, is the exact slogan one might use to launch a watermelon-lime Kool-Aid remix. As with most things in the Snoopiverse, intent and execution collide in an ongoing seminar about branding, irony, and the elasticity of language.
To this day, ‘Coolaid’ remains a fascinating artifact of Snoop Dogg’s career—not because of its chart position or critical reception, but because it dares to occupy the Venn diagram of parental advisory labels and items stored next to lunchables. Never before—and likely never again—has the concept of after-school refreshment been linked so boldly with explicit G-funk tracks.
And that is what makes it quintessentially Snoop.