The casting call for Biggie in a Snoop Dogg movie was always going to be a lightning rod. The answer turned out to be a kid who was born into the exact music the film is about. Variety reported Tuesday, September 8, that SwayvoTwain, born Michael D'Angelo Archer II, will play The Notorious B.I.G. in Universal's untitled Snoop biopic. He is 29. His father was D'Angelo. His mother was Angie Stone. Both are gone. This is his first film.
Who else got the call
Variety's report, picked up by Billboard and XXL, added two more names. G Perico, the South Central rapper whose whole discography is a Long Beach-adjacent history lesson, plays Big Reecie Cup, one of Snoop's early mentors. Bentley Green plays RBX, Snoop's cousin and the Death Row voice who never got the solo run.
They join a cast that already reads like a Death Row reunion in wax-museum form: Jonathan Daviss as Snoop, Camron Jones as Tupac, Lauren London as Snoop's mother Beverly Tate, Algee Smith as Warren G, Myles Bullock as Dr. Dre, Tre Hale as Suge Knight, Olly Sholotan as Kurupt, and Corey Champagne as Nate Dogg.
Craig Brewer directs. Brian Grazer produces. That's the Hustle & Flow director and the 8 Mile producer, which tells you the studio's intent: a rap movie that plays as a movie, not a music video with a runtime. It's the first film under Death Row Pictures' overall deal with NBCUniversal, and Universal has it in theaters August 6, 2027.
The bloodline part
There's a version of this story that's just a casting note. The real one is heavier. D'Angelo died last year; Angie Stone died in a highway crash in 2025. Their son spent the last year and a half as a footnote in two obituaries. Now he's playing the most mythologized dead man in rap, in a film about the West Coast era his father's Brown Sugar was the neo-soul answer to. His reaction on Instagram, quoted by XXL, was four words long: "It's all good baby, BABYYY." Biggie's line. He knows exactly what he's stepping into.
Physically, the choice makes sense. Swayvo has the frame and the face for it, and the studio clearly wanted an unknown for Biggie the way it wanted an unknown for Snoop. What it also wanted, whether it says so or not, is a name that sounds like the music. It got one.
What the movie is really about
Snoop's story from Long Beach to Doggystyle to the murder trial runs straight through the 1995 Source Awards, the Bad Boy–Death Row war, and the two deaths that ended the decade. Biggie isn't a cameo in that story. He's the other pole. How Brewer handles the Snoop–Biggie relationship, which was warmer in real life than the feud narrative allows, is going to decide whether this film is a Death Row commercial or a real period piece.
August 2027 is a long way off. The casting says they're at least trying.
## Sources - Snoop Dogg Biopic Casts D'Angelo's Son SwayvoTwain as The Notorious B.I.G. — Variety (@Variety), Sept. 8, 2026 - D'Angelo and Angie Stone's Son Cast as Biggie in Snoop Dogg Biopic — Billboard, Sept. 8, 2026 - SwayvoTwain to Play The Notorious B.I.G. in Snoop Dogg Biopic — XXL (@XXL), Sept. 9, 2026 - Snoop Dogg Biopic Casts D'Angelo's Son as Notorious B.I.G. — Rolling Stone, Sept. 8, 2026