How do you go from having a promising career in sports to becoming one of the hottest, most successful entrepreneurs in gaming, music, and even ice cream? Cordell Broadus knows the answer: own your narrative and create an honest, clear storytelling.
Video games, music, ice creams, films — you name it, Cordell has tried building a business around it. But his story has a beginning, of course. “The first thing that caught my attention was filmmaking based off of storytelling and just being a creative and crafting your own narrative. I've never found success in film, but it taught me how to build a story,” he told us when sitting down for a quick chat at Riyadh’s XP Music Futures festival, a project by MDL Beast bringing powerful voices to Saudi Arabia for three days of conferences, workshops, and concerts.
One of his main goals in everything he makes is representation. “I feel like I played sports because that's all I saw, you know? Most kids that look like me wanna be musicians or athletes because that's all we see,” he comments. “And I just felt like there was more out there for me.” It’s demoralising to think that Black kids in the US only see a couple of ‘realistic’ paths ahead for them because all other avenues are closed off. And it’s even more demoralising that this happened to Cordell as well, who happens to be Snoop Dogg’s son. So, even if you have an incredibly successful father like his, you might end up diminishing your potential regardless.
But Cordell is ‘more’ than Snoop Dogg’s father; he’s also his business partner, and outside of this, he’s an entrepreneur, an example for kids out there, and a down-to-earth person who knows what he’s doing to make the world a better place. Today we speak with him about his favourite video games, representation in business, Fortnite, and ice cream flavours.
First of all, it’s very nice to meet you. How are you doing today? Is it your first time in the Middle East?
I'm doing really good. It's my first time out here, I feel so welcome. This place has a lot of potential! When you look at markets like the US, it's already reached its peak, but somewhere like Saudi Arabia and the Middle East in general, it's like there's a lot of room for growth. That's what I'm excited for. I wanna see what's to come for this region, especially around music and gaming.
At first, it looked like you were getting into a professional sports career, but then you quickly switched up to a more creative path. But still, what do you think you're bringing into business and creativity from the sports world?
What I learned from sports was the camaraderie and being a team player, not always making it about yourself. Thinking about what is the goal, how can we win, and how can we help each other. A saying that we would always use was: you’re only as strong as your weakest link. So whoever isn’ up to par, you wanna go down and help them.
We just took that same mentality as far as being entrepreneurs and partnering with people that are smarter than us, have more knowledge and experience, and not going in it naive or bigheaded like most people of status do when they start brands — that’s why they tend to fail so quickly, because there's no real operation behind the team.
That's what I learned in football and in sports — just trying to take that over into the business world. Sports is physical, but in business, it's all mind and communication, so just trying to switch gears from being so physical to mental. It’s been a process; it’s been a learning curve, but the athlete in me loves the challenge.
We just took that same mentality as far as being entrepreneurs and partnering with people that are smarter than us, have more knowledge and experience, and not going in it naive or bigheaded like most people of status do when they start brands — that’s why they tend to fail so quickly, because there's no real operation behind the team.
That's what I learned in football and in sports — just trying to take that over into the business world. Sports is physical, but in business, it's all mind and communication, so just trying to switch gears from being so physical to mental. It’s been a process; it’s been a learning curve, but the athlete in me loves the challenge.
From film, music, and fashion to video games or even ice creams, what was the first thing that really caught your attention?
The first thing that caught my attention was filmmaking based off of storytelling and just being a creative and crafting your own narrative. I've never found success in film, but it taught me how to build a story. I took what I learned in film just like I took what I learned in sports and implemented it in music and gaming and ice cream. And now we're developing brands that have strong stories.
Consumers are not saying, why is this a brand? Because they know what the story is. If they know what the story is, they know how to engage with it, especially if it's new, because we got competition that's been around for sixty years as far as ice cream and video games go.
Consumers are not saying, why is this a brand? Because they know what the story is. If they know what the story is, they know how to engage with it, especially if it's new, because we got competition that's been around for sixty years as far as ice cream and video games go.
So the competition is pretty tough.
Some brands were here way before I was even thought of, so we gotta come at it in a new angle. How are you changing the narrative? How are we filling in that space? Also, I'm big on representation. I feel like I played sports because that's all I saw, you know? Most kids that look like me wanna be musicians or athletes because that's all we see. And I just felt like there was more out there for me. Being an entrepreneur, I feel like I could inspire kids to not marginalise themselves, but empower themselves and be in control of their own journey.
“Being an entrepreneur, I feel like I could inspire kids to not marginalise themselves, but empower themselves and be in control of their own journey.”
I love that. I actually wanted to ask about the topic because Black folk in America complain, rightfully so, about the lack of positive representation in media, politics, culture — everything. But you being the son of an incredibly successful Black artist and and businessman, did you still feel that lack of references for you to follow?
I feel like kids that's in the position that I'm in, usually celebrity offspring, we tend to not take advantage of the resources around us. That's something you gotta learn how to navigate because you can know these people, but knowing them only gonna get you so far. You gotta know them and know how to implement ideas and be prepared. That's something that I learned throughout my journey.
It took a long time to be able to articulate what I wanted and how I wanted to do things with the resources around my father and not just be ‘Snoop Dogg's son,’ but be an asset to Snoop Dogg. Be an asset to his ecosystem because if you're not doing that, you're just taking advantage of the situation — and that's easy to do. And like I said, the athlete in me, I like challenges. If it's hard, I wanna go towards that.
It took a long time to be able to articulate what I wanted and how I wanted to do things with the resources around my father and not just be ‘Snoop Dogg's son,’ but be an asset to Snoop Dogg. Be an asset to his ecosystem because if you're not doing that, you're just taking advantage of the situation — and that's easy to do. And like I said, the athlete in me, I like challenges. If it's hard, I wanna go towards that.
Also, in the topic of representation, one of your last latest ventures is Death Row Games, where you support more niche and minority creators. How did you come up with the idea? And why do you feel it's important that entrepreneurs like you support these kind of projects and creators?
Growing up, I played a video game called Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. It depicted the areas where my friends and family grew up in. It felt so familiar, unlike most games that are so far fetched from your reality. They spoke like my family, they spoke like my friends, and it just felt like, oh, this is possible.
One of the creatives on Grand Theft Auto is a close family friend of ours, a Black man named DJ Pooh, Mark Jordan. So hearing that as a young kid – uncle Pooh made and helped create Grand Theft Auto – made me realise that I didn’t have to just play sports or have to make music; I can make video games too.
One of the creatives on Grand Theft Auto is a close family friend of ours, a Black man named DJ Pooh, Mark Jordan. So hearing that as a young kid – uncle Pooh made and helped create Grand Theft Auto – made me realise that I didn’t have to just play sports or have to make music; I can make video games too.
That’s very powerful actually.
But being so young, you're not gonna vocalise that. You're just gonna let it stay in your mind, and it either disappears or it just keeps boiling. For me, it kept boiling. I remember travelling to Paris or Italy as a model, and in the parties, I would meet graphic designers and people who’re good at all that type of stuff. That’s how I would network with people.
I met this guy named Stephane in Paris, and we developed a concept for a video game around hip hop acts and them battling each other — similar to Def Jam: Fight For NY, which was a huge game where musicians will battle each other like Street Fighter. That's another game that just felt familiar. There's only a handful of games that really represent hip hop culture and we wanna change that. We wanna be representative in the gaming industry, that’s why we created Death Row Games, so that we can cross pollinate hip hop into gaming because gaming is bigger than hip hop.
I met this guy named Stephane in Paris, and we developed a concept for a video game around hip hop acts and them battling each other — similar to Def Jam: Fight For NY, which was a huge game where musicians will battle each other like Street Fighter. That's another game that just felt familiar. There's only a handful of games that really represent hip hop culture and we wanna change that. We wanna be representative in the gaming industry, that’s why we created Death Row Games, so that we can cross pollinate hip hop into gaming because gaming is bigger than hip hop.
Yeah, gaming is massive, it’s crazy to think about it.
I mean, gaming is bigger than music and film put together. So we're looking at it in a way of, how can you gamify your music catalog? How can you put someone like Snoop on Fortnite and spike up their streams and get new unique listeners? We successfully done that. Snoop had twenty-eight million monthly Spotify listeners before we put him in Fortnite, and after that, he’s now at thirty-three. His streams also went up close to a hundred per cent in a matter of two weeks.
That’s wild!
That's just one prime example. We are striving to do that more through other IPs and trying to bring other minority creators along this journey with us and do something that can represent the culture.
Speaking of video games, which ones are you playing now?
I'll be honest, I played probably three games recently: Call of Duty, Fortnite, and Roulette — it’s just a casino game where you throw a little ball, but that’s just fun. I’m a simple dude.
Last question, what are your next projects or next steps? Because you're always meddling into something new.
It's so much, to be honest with you. I don't even know what to say, but I think one of the things that I'm most passionate about is how we've been able to develop an ice cream brand. This idea started with my great grandfather in Mississippi. He had a dairy farm, and as a Black man, having a dairy farm in the South was unheard of. We're not using the same recipes or anything, but just the notion of him doing that in that time, I think is very inspiring for my father and I.
It’s called Doctor Bombay. Selling it to eighty per cent of grocery stores in the US and all Walmart’s in the US in a matter of a year is quite impressive. But it’s not just he and I, we are super strategic as far as who we're partnering with — we know we're not operators. We know that what we're good at is marketing, ideation, strategy, vision. But on the operation side, we partner with people who have the proper expertise. That's what it's really about as far as building brands — you gotta partner with people smarter than you. That's what we're doing right now with Doctor Bombay and trying to build that up so that we can be representative in the ice cream category as well.
It’s called Doctor Bombay. Selling it to eighty per cent of grocery stores in the US and all Walmart’s in the US in a matter of a year is quite impressive. But it’s not just he and I, we are super strategic as far as who we're partnering with — we know we're not operators. We know that what we're good at is marketing, ideation, strategy, vision. But on the operation side, we partner with people who have the proper expertise. That's what it's really about as far as building brands — you gotta partner with people smarter than you. That's what we're doing right now with Doctor Bombay and trying to build that up so that we can be representative in the ice cream category as well.
That's so nice. Any favourite flavour?
My favourite flavour is blueberry muffin, and the reason why is because I created it. I think it’s our number three top selling flavour, and it's good. I really like it. My daughter was the one who actually told me to make it, but I'm taking all the credit (laughs).