Snoop Dogg preview

Staff Pick Snoop Dogg w/ Knaan, The Hustle Boyz
When: Sat., May 16 Phone: (843) 853-3276
Price: (sold out)
www.snoopdogg.com

Since making his debut with a prominent role on Dr. Dre’s watershed The Chronic in 1992, and following that with his own Doggystyle in 1993, Snoop (Doggy) Dogg has been a marquee rapper. Beginning as the embodiment of West Coast gangsta rap’s second wave, sporting a Death Row imprint on his records, and marrying his syrupy (resin-y?) flow to Dre’s G-funk production, Snoop managed to make party records from tales of murder, mayhem, and misanthropy. But as his career has advanced, Snoop has ridden his pimpin’ aesthetic from fierce-but-funky to charmingly self-parodic roles (Huggy Bear in 2004’s Starsky & Hutch) and carefree detours in his music (the semi-ironic sex jam “Sensual Seduction” wound up a hit). Snoop, perhaps more than any other rapper, has stretched his longevity, turning the thug life, authentic and exaggerated, into a lucrative career as a bona fide (no pun intended?) pop star. Fo’ shizzle. 8 p.m. —Bryan Reed

Charleston City Paper 5/12/09