Snoop Performing at E3 - H 2013
Getty ImagesAttendees at the E3 convention got a big surprise on Wednesday when Snoop Dogg performed at a party for Fox and Dreamworks Animation’s newest feature, Turbo.
The artist, who sometimes goes by the name Snoop Lion, debuted a new song, “Let the Bass Go,” that shook the plaza with its thumping synths and the rapper’s smooth West Coast rhymes. The new song is off the upcoming film’s soundtrack, and Snoop Dogg also voices one of the characters, a blinged-out laid-back snail named Smoove Move.
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“It has to be fun,” Snoop Dogg tells The Hollywood Reporter about his most recent endeavors. “Everything in my life had to be about me having fun, whether that’s music, movies, everything.
Michael Pena and Michelle Rodriguez, who play humans, not snails, in Turbo, also attended the event, spoke a bit to the audience about their characters, and proceeded to introduce the main event: Snoop.
Fresh off producing his documentary, Reincarnated, which described his transformation into a rasta, Snoop was dressed in a red and blue jumpsuit and surrounded by crumping backup dancers during his performance. After debuting the new song, Snoop continued the party, performing classics like “The Next Episode” and “Drop It Like It’s Hot” and whetting the audience’s eager appetite.
Pena (End of Watch, Crash) plays Tito, the co-owner of a Mexican taco shop (“It’s a stretch for me to play a Mexican, but I can do it,” he jokes) who discovers the super snail Turbo (Ryan Reynolds) and supports his dreams of making it to the Indy 500. The film’s underdog tale influenced Pena, who typically plays serious live action roles, to dive into unchartered territory: animation.
“My son is four and a half years old, and we watch so many animated movies,” Pena admits. “I wanted to be a part of it so that when I watch with my kid, he’s gonna notice me like ‘DaDa!'”
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Rodriguez (Fast & Furious 6, Battle: Los Angeles) doesn’t see the film that way. Although Rodriguez’s character, Paz, is not a racing snail in Turbo, she is a car mechanic, and reinforces the actress’s affinity for atypical female roles.
“I hate a girl just being in a movie to chase the guy,” she professes. “And besides, there’s so many cultures around the world that are ready to move on from that perspective.
“I like action. I like watching things get destroyed. I like to do things in movies that you would get locked up for in real life.”
The “Turbo-Charged Event” also acted as a launch-pad for the film’s new racing game app, Turbo Racing League, currently available for download on all mobile platforms.
Turbo is directed by newcomer David Soren and stars Reynolds, Paul Giamatti, Pena, Luis Guzman, Bill Hader, Maya Rudolph, Rodriguez, Ken Jeong and Samuel L. Jackson.
“Smoove Move is a miniature version of me,” Snoop says. “If I was a snail, I’d be like Smoove Move: riding low to the ground, same kind of swag.”
Turbo will be released in theaters on July 17.
