Bishop Snow Is As Real As It Gets: an Interview with Bishop Snow
Bishop Snow is as real as it gets. At least, that’s what I get from the Oceanside rapper’s candid perspective on music and his relentless effort to uplift his collaborators. Snow has been working diligently since 2021 to create and refine his musical persona and public brand, culminating with the recent release of his 2024 album, “Mission Ave II.”
Born in the small desert town of Twentynine Palms, Snow moved to Oceanside, California at three months old, a city he would call home for the rest of his life. Snow says he was surrounded by music at an early age: “As far as I can remember there was a lot of different types of music being played in the house, but my mom’s a real big fan of 80s pop and 80s rock.”
Snow attributes his early exposure to music to his mother, Deborah Snow. “My mom sang herself; she went to school for it and ended up touring with a group that she did in the 80s.” She introduced him to the artists that would go on to inspire his own affinity for music, such as Michael Jackson, Prince, Lauryn Hill, and A Tribe Called Quest.
Growing up in the late 90s, Snow’s exposure to hip-hop was unavoidable. “I listened to a lot of other LA-based rap, Bay-Area rap, a lot of Too Short,” Snow said. “My mom wasn’t really too heavy on Tupac when I was younger so it was a lot more of Outkast. But then I branched off on my own and discovered Nas at a young age, and dug more into Tupac. But, you know, Andre and Big Boi, that sound is timeless.”
Despite his love for music Snow didn’t launch his rap career until 2021, when he faced the decision to confront a lifestyle change. “I kind of got a little too carried away with my lifestyle out here and felt like I needed a relocation,” Snow said. “But after a whole life of running around streets and making bad decisions, it’s kind of come full circle and I’m chasing my dreams trying to make things happen.”
Snow dropped his first album, “Lord, Forgive Me,” in 2022, but he says he struggled to find his place in the rap scene. “I came into rap with no real understanding how a lot of that was done. I didn’t understand the whole idea of what it really took to get all this and make an album and be consistent.” Things changed a few months later when Snow teamed up with his current manager, Andrés Ximenez.
Andrés and his brother Daniel are the founders, owners, and operators of MadStrange, an Oceanside-based clothing company that is expanding into art and management for Oceanside artists. “I’ve known Andrés for years,” said Snow, “but things really started off when we had a conversation about me modeling for MadStrange. One day at an event he asked me how far I wanted to take the music and my answer then is my answer now, that I wanted to be one of the best to do it and so he told me, ‘Alright.’”
The Ximenez brothers built Snow a studio in the back of their clothing shop and took Snow’s career in their hands, lining him up with producers and teaching him to self-promote on social media. “It’s funny because I refused in the beginning to have a TikTok. But over time, seeing the results of having a lot of TikToks do really well and seeing how that boosts your [streaming] numbers up, it really just all pays off.”
“Whether I meet people in public and they tell me that they know me from Tiktok and they listen to my music or no matter what the case is, [it’s] really just a product of what MadStrange taught me how to do. Because if I don’t promote myself, nobody else is gonna do it. I’m coming from a position where no one really knows the city I’m from; it’s not like I’m just going to walk out on the scene and everyone’s going to hear from me because I have a cosign from somebody bigger, that’s not how that works.”
Across his first four albums Snow can be heard exploring his sound, juggling West Coast styles with contemporary influences, but it wasn’t until some advice from fellow Oceanside rapper Dezzy Hollow that Snow was sent on the path to striking gold. “I showed [Dezzy Hollow] the music that I had and he gave me the advice that I need to start doing G-funk.” Snow continued, “G-funk and gangsta rap I kind of see as one and the same, but [they’re] also completely different.”
Following Hollow’s advice, Snow leaned heavily into G-funk, embellishing the sounds that reminded him of the work of Dr.Dre. “The beats that I chose were reminiscent of something like Death Row beats,” Snow said. While he can endlessly list the producers and artists who have helped him along his journey, a name that stands out the most is that of Los Angeles producer, De’La, a man who has become a critical component of Snow’s comfortable W.C. aesthetic.
Snow was introduced to De’La through MadStrange. “De’La’s worked with a ton of other artists, they basically set up a studio session with me where I would go up to LA, I would have a four-hour-set down and basically get whatever beats I could get.” Snow describes De’La’s work as very creatively collaborative. “I work with him on the production side of things helping decide what I think sounds right and what doesn’t. We find what instruments or sounds we think will fit and then go from that.”
Someone once said it takes a village to raise a child, but it’s also true for the development of Snow’s music career. What Snow seems to value the most about his career are the opportunities it’s created to interact with other creators, people he credits with his success. “As far as the people that I’ve worked with I appreciate all of them, they’re all great friends of mine now and I feel like they’re amazing artists and to have been able to work with them and all the producers I’ve worked with, it’s mind-boggling.”
The full list of names Snow credits for his success is too long to publish, but summing it up, his biggest thanks are for his community of Oceanside:
“Yeah, really it’s the city as a whole. We all support each other really well, the sense of community here is very very strong. Just like with anywhere, there’s a lot of love, there’s a lot of hate, but there’s also a lot of people that understand there’s a lot of work to be done.“
While music fulfills his goals and ambitions as an artist, it also provides for his family, including his son Giovanni. “Gio is a really big part of why I’m doing what I’m doing and I just want to help him be set when he’s older,” Snow said. “Having a son, it teaches you a lot about being a person and a father.” Snow also hopes that his career can help him move his mother back to Oceanside. “The ultimate goal is to move her back down here so she can be with her grandson, so that’s one of the reasons why I’m working so hard for this too.”
Despite just dropping an album this July, Snow keeps a preemptive eye on the future. “I make sure to give myself a break to live my life so that way I have something to write about you know? But I think that’s it. Art kind of takes over my life as a whole and that's just the way it's always been, it's the way I’ve always looked at it. I understand [Mission Ave II] is my best work right now, but what I make next has to be even better.”