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We’re pretty sure that marijuana has never had a better friend than Snoop Dogg. For the past 20 years — ever since he broke through on Dr. Dre’s classic album “The Chronic” — the rapper has been the ultimate pot proponent, paying tribute in songs such as “This Weed Iz Mine” and “Smoke Weed Everyday.”
He’s so famous for ingesting cannabis that during an appearance on “George Lopez Tonight” last year, Cameron Diaz casually dropped his name in an anecdote about buying drugs from Snoop as a teenager in Long Beach, Calif.
“We went to high school together — he was a year older than me,” she said. “He was very tall and skinny and wore lots of ponytails in his hair, and I’m pretty sure I got weed from him. I had to have!”
Now the rapper will be spreading the gospel of ganja from a slightly more elevated plane — as an adherent of Rastafarianism named Snoop Lion. (As in Lion of Judah, a reference to the Rasta belief that they descended from a tribe of Israelites.)
Last week, Snoop held a press conference at Miss Lily’s Jamaican restaurant in Greenwich Village to announce his reinvention.
“I’ve always said that I was Bob Marley reincarnated,” he declared, apparently forgetting that Marley died in 1981, 10 years after Snoop was born. He went on to describe a spiritual awakening he had after spending time in Jamaica last winter, immersing himself in Rastafarian culture.
“I went to the temple, and when I walked in, the high priest asked me what my name was,” the rapper recalled. “I said ‘Snoop Dogg.’ He looked me in my eyes and said, ‘No more. You are the light. You are the Lion.’ ”
It sounds as though Snoop blazed a crop of delusional strength skunk, but the newly baptized Lion is taking this conversion more seriously than it may seem. His trip has been captured by Vice media for an upcoming documentary named “Reincarnated.” In it, Snoop is seen visiting Rastafarian elders, learning the lesser-known spiritual facets of the movement and recording his upcoming roots reggae album, also entitled “Reincarnated,” which was produced by M.I.A./Beyonce collaborator Diplo.
It’s an experience that has also seen Snoop — who in 1996 was controversially found not guilty of murder after a gang shooting — do an apparent U-turn on his old gangsta ways.
“There’s a song on the record called ‘No Guns Allowed’,” Snoop added. “With so much shooting and killing going on . . . I’m tired of it. We made this record because I always wanted to make a song that could stand for something. It’s so tragic that people are still doing stupid things with guns. I feel like there should be no guns allowed.”
From rapper to Rasta, from thug to hugs, Snoop is nothing if not an example of how much growth and change one lifetime can bring. We’ve seen him do everything from coaching pee wee football to produce porn videos. But it almost goes without saying that no matter what member of the animal kingdom Snoop decides to emulate next, the one constant will be a plentiful supply of blunts in his back pocket.
Not everyone has been quite so happy to help Snoop with his green-fingered hobbies, though. The government of Norway just banned him from entering the country for two years, after he was caught smuggling eight grams of marijuana through an airport on the way to a gig. (You’d think that after all this time, he would have learned to have his breakfast before he gets to work.)
And despite his religious transformation, Snoop won’t have free reign to torch up whenever the light of Jah falls upon him. The Justice Department doesn’t treat Rastafarians differently from other citizens — Snoop has been cited at least half a dozen times for possession, including as recently as January — and pot remains illegal in Jamaica. Snoop may want to spend more time in Italy, where a court ruled in 2008 that Rastafarians may possess up to a week’s worth of pot for personal use — enough for about 70 joints.