Snoop appears, as if by magic, in a puff of his own smoke. The rapper, actor, gangster and stoner extraordinaire has reinvented himself as a reggae-singing messenger of hope. Snoop Dogg is dead, long live Snoop Lion.
We meet in his management office in Los Angeles, an enormous warehouse dedicated to all things Snoop. On the walls are huge Snoop posters, to the left is the Snoop television studio, where two near-naked women are chatting, and to my right is an old-fashioned video with a stack of Snoop VHSs lined up alongside it.
He slopes in, long and loping, in a white T-shirt, dark jeans and jacket, trainers and shades, blingtastic lion medallion hanging down his chest, patchy Rasta beard, and surprisingly beautiful. He shakes hands, asks one of his homies why there is no oil in his ganja pipe, flicks on the huge flatscreen TV in front of us and starts watching a bit of Snoop history. He is instantly engrossed. No sooner has he sat down than he is up and dancing. “‘Baby if you want me…'”
Snoop has just made a documentary that charts his path from gun-toting gangsta-rapper to the peace-and-love Rastafarian who claims to have been reincarnated (the name of both the film and his new album). I tell him I like the film. “Thank you, man. It’s from the heart and soul.” He talks about how he has changed as a man, a husband, a father of three. “When you allow evolution to happen, that’s when it becomes the greatest thing it could possibly be.” He’s still staring at the screen and comes to a sudden stop. “Who is that? Is that Rachel from BET [Black Entertainment Television]? Well, whoever she is, she fine as a motherfucker. She pregnant, too. That is Rachel! You bitch, you. Jamaican Rastafari. Yeah, man.”
Snoop Lion still has a fair bit of the Dogg in him. But then Snoop Doggy Dogg, as he was first known, was never afraid of embracing his contradictions. He emerged in 1993 with the hugely successful album Doggystyle, and set the pattern for 20 years of guns, gangsters and misogyny. His voice was rich and seductive. His raps were X-rated, yet the kids loved him. He wrote about pimping and dealing on the streets of underclass black America, yet the white middle classes adored him (even the upper classes: Princes William and Harry are fans). Despite the bleak violence he portrayed, there was an innocence to his world – the video to one of his early hits, Gin & Juice, showed partying kids panicking as the parents arrive back early. Only Snoop could dare to write Ain’t No Fun (If The Homies Can’t Have None), which critics have described as a paean to gang rape, as a love song “for the ladies”. He worships the free market, having endorsed everything from Pepsi Max to Norton Anti-Virus Software, and is now worth an estimated $110-million. Yet he is a staunch Democrat.