The Bite Magazine - Autumn/Winter 2021 - Issue 30

bitemusicceleb He would see more arrests with several on drug and fire- arm possessions, an implication in a rape case that was later dropped and a ban from the United Kingdom and a denial of entry into Australia. Incidentally, the artist won his long-run- ning battle with the UK Border Agency to be allowed back into the country. He had originally been denied entry in 2007, forcing him and fellow rapper P Diddy to cancel the British dates of their European tour. The incident related to his arrest at Heathrow airport in 2006, following a fracas involving members of his entourage. In 2008, the ban was lifted when an immigration judge found no evidence the rapper had been responsible for any public disorder. Although the UK Border Agency challenged the decision and it went to an asylum and immigration tribunal, it was ruled that the decision to deny Snoop entry had been wrong. Australia denied him access into their country in 2007 be- cause of his recent convictions for drugs and firearms al- though they said their decision was based on ‘character grounds’ and because he had overstayed a previous visa. He was due to co-host MTV’s Australia Video Music Awards in Sydney that weekend. The following year, the ban was lifted and Snoop was granted a visa to tour the country. He had previously toured down under between 1998 and 2007 with- out incident. Snoop Dogg has never denied his love for marijuana and even created a cannabis business that he launched through his Casa Verde company where he sells a variety of marijuana products that has seen huge success. He went a step further and cultivated a digital media platform, Merry Jane, in 2015, a site that features written content about the cannabis indus- try. He provides his knowledge by aiding fans on how to iden- tify different strains of cannabis and find local dispensaries. Thanks to his relaxed and cool demeanour, Snoop Dogg ex- panded his musical reach to amass a substantial list of film credits including Training Day (2001), Soul Plane (2004), Starsky & Hutch (2004), Scary Movie 5 (2013), Future World (2018) and Dolomite Is My Name (2019). He also lent his dis- tinctive parlance to the animated series The Boondocks and The Simpsons as well as animated films Turbo (2013), Trouble (2019), The Addams Family (2019), and The Addams Family 2 (2021). In 2012, the rap world was surprised when Snoop decided to adopt the name Snoop Lion as a result of embracing the Ras- tafari movement. He released the reggae album Reincarnated a year later and also collaborated with funk musician Dâm Funk on the album 7 Days of Funk under the name of Snoop- zilla. In 2015, he returned to his hip-hop roots and resumed his original name, featuring on the Pharrell Williams-pro- duced funk and R&B release Bush and Neva Left in 2017. While he used the alias Lion, he made a documentary, sub- sequently called Reincarnated as well, that charted his path from gun-toting gangsta-rapper to the peace-and-love Rasta- farian who he claimed had been reincarnated. The documen- tary talks about how Snoop has changed as a man, a husband and a father of three. “When you allow evolution to happen, that’s when it becomes the greatest thing it could possibly be,” he told Simon Hattenstone of The Guardian in 2013. This wasn’t the first time Snoop had changed his name. When Calvin Broadus (his real name) started in the early ‘90s as an upcoming superstar on Death Row Records, he choose the name Snoop Doggy Dogg and kept the name until he left the record label to join Master P’s No Limit Records in 1998. Tha Doggfather name came from the rapper’s growth and maturi- ty in which he saw himself as a father figure through his level of success and growing knowledge in the rap game. When he joined No Limit Records, Snoop had to change his name to the abbreviated Snoop Dogg for contractual reasons with his former label. He released several tracks with No Limit Records before leaving them to strike out on his own