Snoop Dogg Grows Up, Becomes ‘Snoop Lion’
Snoop Dogg, who now wants to be known as Snoop Lion, certainly isn't the first rapper to change his stage name. (Hello, P. Whatever You Call Yourself These Days...) But the rapper formerly known as Calvin Broadus' sudden transformation from the "d-o-double-g" to the king of the jungle appears to be about a lot more than just a new moniker.
According to Lion, he had grown tired of hip hop, a genre he feels he has mastered. Then, during a recent trip to Jamaica, he had a spiritual awakening that showed him a new path.
"I went to the temple, where the High Priest asked me what my name was, and I said, 'Snoop Dogg,'" Snoop explained in a press conference. "And he looked me in my eyes and said, 'No more. You are the light; you are the lion.' From that moment on, it's like I had started to understand why I was there."
"I have always said I was Bob Marley reincarnated," Lion continued. "I feel I have always been a Rastafari. I just didn't have my third eye open, but it's wide open right now."
Recasting himself as a Rastafarian and a singer, Lion's new reggae-flavored album 'Reincarnated' will feature very little rapping and includes the anti-handgun single "No Guns Allowed" -- a song Lion said he could have never recorded when he was "gangsta."
Do you think the move to reggae -- which some are calling a "midlife crisis" -- will work? The last time such a high profile artist so publicly switched genres was when country superstar Garth Brooks became brooding "alternative" singer Chris Gaines -- a move we'd all rather forget.