Snoop Dogg barkin' up the right tree these days

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It's a Dogg's world and life is sweet as sugar.

Ten years ago, no one could have predicted that gangsta rapper Snoop Dogg, a.k.a. Calvin Broadus, a man with a propensity for guns, drugs and the high life and at the center of a bloody East Coast-West Coast rap feud (and murder trial), would ever become a cuddly corporate spokesman.

But there he was lapping up the spotlight during a series of Nokia halftime commercials during the Sugar Bowl BCS National Championship earlier this month.

Fittingly, the fun ad campaign featuring Snoop as a detective, attorney Johnnie Cochran and Texas Christian University's mascot was called "Who's Got Their Eye on the Ultimate Bling?" It was watched by an estimated 24 million viewers according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

That's Snoop, too, with Jerry Stiller in those recent AOL commercials, and he'll be pimpin' it on the big screen in March with Owen Wilson and Ben Stiller in the "Starsky & Hutch" parody as Huggy Bear. Snoop's also set to star with Tom Arnold and Method Man in "Soul Plane."

According to MTV News, Snoop narrates and raps in Marc Klasfeld's upcoming independent, big-screen satire "The L.A. Riot Spectacular." "I play a kind of square who used to be involved with the drugs and the gangs and all that but found the right path," Snoop told MTV.

Who says you can't teach an old Dogg new tricks? The man's gone prime time, um, when he's not hawking "Girls Gone Wild Doggy Style" tapes.

But relatively speaking, Snoop's been cleaning up his act and laid-back, bling-bling image for a while now (it's a classic American success tale), through hard work — he's practically omnipresent in hip-hop — and business savvy.

And his concert appearance with the Red Hot Chili Peppers last summer at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater found him delivering some of the best, most soulful hip-hop around. That he brings it with a live band elevates his art far beyond track-act rappers.

Snoop Dogg performs Wednesday at Sunset Station. Special guests are Daz and Soopafly. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. All ages are welcome.

He more than dabbles in music. His "Welcome to the Church" series of mix tapes and his latest album, "Paid Tha Cost to Be Da Bo$$," have maintained his street cred. Snoop's "Pimp Slapp'd" is part of the continuing rap drama war of words with Death Row's Suge Knight. He's recently reunited 213 in concert with Warren G and Nate Dogg.

That's Snoop guesting on 50 Cent's "P.I.M.P" remix and Ludacris' "Chicken N Beer."

He's at No. 28 on Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks chart (No. 11 on their rap chart), guesting on Chingy's "Holidae In" and lower on the same R&B chart with Knoc-Turn'Al on "The Way I Am."

There's no denying his cultural icon status, an image that is part fantasy, part gangsta life — just like the new video game that features his music, "True Crime: Streets of L.A."

Snoop claims he looted during the Los Angeles riots in 1992 after the Rodney King verdict. His appearance in the upcoming satire is more than just ironic.

"I've been beat by the police five or six times before Rodney King, after Rodney King," Snoop told MTV News. "The police tend to have a grudge against young black men. If there's three or four of us in the car that's just the way they come at us. And if it ain't no celebrity in the car, you really gonna get (expletive) with. That's just the way it is."

But sometimes the Doggfather brings it on himself. Last June on the way to the Black Entertainment Awards, Snoop's three-vehicle caravan, which included an armored van with customized gun ports, was stopped by police, according to the Los Angeles Times. Inside was a cache of weapons: handguns, knives, batons and pepper spray.

Source: San Antonio Express-News

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