In case you haven’t followed this bizarre story, let’s get the basics out of the way. Snoop Dogg, responsible for an all time hip hop classic, intends to stop rapping. Basically, he went to Jamaica and had, what he calls, a life-changing epiphany. For the rest of us, he means both a mid-career, and mid-life, crisis. After all, Snoop’s once unstoppable sales regime has been gradually stumbling for years, you can’t really blame the guy for reconsidering what it is he does. Perhaps not this way, though.

Snoop Dogg became Snoop Lion – a full-on raggae artist. In some ways, this isn’t entirely an unnatural development. The guy’s more than a tad fond of ganja, but considering genuine Rastafarianism is – stoner’s love for it aside – is a culture and belief system to itself, making Snoop’s entrance inevitably feel a bit facetious. On the other hand, Bob Marley’s family, and many Jamacians, have been behind the (former?) rapper’s decision, so who are we to judge?

What remains to be seen is if he’ll somehow pull it off, or if it’ll simply be a mess. Many thought the raggae album he recorded entirely with Diplo, Reincarnated, would be a one time thing. Not so, according to the “Lion”. From Fact Magazine, check out the MC’s statment’s below.

“Speaking to press in New York this week, Snoop claimed that he hadn’t planned to go to Jamaica to make a reggae record, but “the spirit called me … And, you know, anytime the spirit calls you, you gotta know that its serious.”

Indeed. Continuing, Snoop explained that he doesn’t want Reincarnated to portray “Snoop Dogg in a reggae track”, instead, claiming that he “want[s] to bury Snoop Dogg and become Snoop Lion”, after a spiritual meeting with a high priest in Jamaica. “Rap is not a challenge to me. I had enough of that. It’s not appealing to me no more. I don’t have no challenges … I’m ‘Uncle Snoop’ in rap. When you get to be an uncle, you need to find a new profession so you can start over and be fresh again.”

Well, there you have it. Listen to the first single from the project, “La La La”, if you be stout enough of heart. Most of us here at BPM aren’t.