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Long Beach rapper Snoop Dogg has risen above his violent early years to become the lovable pimp next door. Even your dad probably knows who D-O double G is. This hasn't always been the case. Snoop hooked up with Southern California gang The Crips in the early 1980's and, as a result of drug trafficking, spent his graduation in jail. Snoop has later said that the Crips were actually very encouraging to their artistically talented members and directed the young Dogg's energies towards mix tapes rather than hustling. Snoop Dogg's personal talent was his trademark lazy drawl, like life is just too good to spit fast. He also pioneered the West Coast g-funk sound, rapping gangsta over p-funk samples and lots of female vocals on the chorus. He hit it off with Dr. Dre, and the older rapper mentored Snoop, then him to Death Row Records. After helping build Dre's masterpiece The Chronic, Snoop's rough 1993 debut Doggystyle went straight to #1. The singles "Gin and Juice" and "Who Am I (What's My Name?)" are gangsta classics. However, he was entangled in legal troubles at the time, over the alleged shooting of a rival gang member. A far cry from the warm and cuddly Snoop on reality TV today. Snoop and his bodyguard were acquitted in court and Snoop went back to recording for Def Jam. He recorded "Two of America's Most Wanted" with fellow Californian Tupac, and the track sees the rappers trading unrelated tails of legal woe. Shortly after Snoop dropped his second album, The Doggfather, Death Row suffered an internal schism as co-founder Suge Knight was imprisoned on racketeering charges while Dr. Dre left unhappily. Snoop was bound to Death Row with an ironclad contract and they wanted him to crank out records to make up for Dre's departure. Snoop wasn't feeling the pressure and released only one track, "F*ck Death Row" until his contract expired. Snoop Dogg, the former spokesman for all things gangsta, has cleaned up his image, collaborating with Pharrel the tender-thug hit "Beautiful" and party-starter "Drop It Like It's Hot."

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