Andy Capper tells us about his personal experiences with Snoop Dogg

As Reincarnated – a documentary archiving hip hop star Snoop Dogg’s spiritual and commercial transition into becoming a reggae artist named Snoop Lion –  hits our screens today, we were fortunate to sit down and discuss the title with director of the movie Andy Capper.

Also the global editor of Vice, Capper tells us about his own personal experiences with Snoop, his favourite memory of the whole occasion, and his next project, which charts the fame of an internet cat sensation.

Tell us a little bit about Reincarnated…

Snoop’s management company came to Vice in 2011 and asked if we wanted to get involved as Diplo was a fan of the stuff I’d made before like The Vice Guide to Liberia, Heavy Metal in Baghdad and so we had the chance to go out there and in some circumstances use Snoop as a regular Vice journalist. I knew that if I had all that time with him I’d be able to try and get his life story out of him as much as I could.

What’s it like having such unprecedented access to someone like Snoop?

He was a character for sure, but everybody knows that. He’s a sweetheart really.

He’s such a charismatic person, how important is it when making a documentary about someone that they can just light up the screen with so much ease?

Hugely important, I’ve done documentaries before thinking the subject matter was fine but then if you don’t have any strong characters you’re kind of screwed.

How did Snoop and Vice come to form this partnership?

They came to us and said you know, we’re doing this documentary, and we used to have a relationship with Diplo for a while and they asked me to direct it.

Have you got any favourite memories that stand out from this project?

Shooting at the Nyahbinghi Temple was great, and we only use that for a five minute scene which is a real shame as we were there for four or five hours, but that was just an incredible experience.

As the global editor of Vice, was it always intention to eventually get behind the camera and direct?

I started doing it about four or five years ago, I’d done stuff for the magazine that was usually like docs, and in the past few years I’ve made 15 or 20, so yeah it’s what I like to do the most for sure.

Was it something you always wanted to go growing up, or is it just how things have turned out?

I was interested as a kid, but then I had a break of 25 years before starting it up again. The new film we’ve made is coming to Tribeca Film Festival next month which is called Lil Bub & Friendz and it’s the story of an internet cat. Kind of a weird one but people are gonna like it. The trailer is up on YouTube if you wanna have a look at it.

What’s it about?

It’s about a cat who is disabled and has problems with its body, and its owner put a picture of it up on the internet and the next thing he knows he’s famous, the cat’s famous and there’s merchandise and t-shirts and it’s about the force of this celebrity cat wave that we have at the moment. It’s all about his relationship with the cat and stuff like that.

Back to Reincarnated, the film ends on a somewhat poignant tone, and I wondered if that was always the intention or whether you were just led by the material you had obtained?

Well we knew it was going to be a tough piece, and there has been some criticism of it. You know, it is a tough piece but you know we tried to make it as rich as possible. But Snoop is an important artist you know, not many people from the era that he came from are still alive, so this is kind of a story of how he did it.

Have you always been a big fan of his music?

Well yeah, but I’ve always been into music, my dad used to work around the corner from The Cavern and used to see The Beatles on his lunch break so I’ve always had that. But I remember when rap started and we used to get these little tapes at school when I was a kid and I used to go in and out of it, but both NWA and Death Row were a big thing for me.

So finally you’ve been touring this film at the festivals, that must have good fun seeing how different cultures respond different to the film?

Yeah and it’s opening in 10 cities in the UK this week and 10 cities in the US and in France and all over Europe and then it’s going to be on Netflix and iTunes. I think it works well to a festival crowd.

Reincarnated Film Page | Reincarnated Review

REINCARNATED IS OUT NOW