"F*ck Snoop Dogg. Don't think about none of the sh*t he rapped about," Snoop Dogg says in the trailer for his new documentary with Vice. "Hustling and making money and drug dealing and shooting—all that sh*t be outta here."

So it appears that Snoop has undergone a spiritual reincarnation after visiting the island of Jamaica with Vice camera crew in tow. He told a crowd of reporters yesterday in New York City that the religious experience was spurred by a visit to a Nyabinghi temple on the island. While there, he met with local Rastafarian priests, one of whom named the rapper "Snoop Lion." 

“I have always said I was Bob Marley reincarnated,” Snoop said, according to the New York Times. “I feel I have always been a Rastafari. I just didn’t have my third eye open, but its wide open right now.”

Snoop will take the name Snoop Lion for good now, and he's putting out a reggae album later this year.

I have a few thoughts about this: While the documentary looks sick, and I'll certainly have to check out the album out of curiosity at least, I find all this a bit hard to believe, mainly because of the Snoop I saw on Sunday. As I wrote in the recap of the Catalpa music festival, Snoop played all of "Doggystyle," one of the most brutal rap albums in history. He also acted in several intro videos to the songs—in one, he shot a woman, and in another he played his usual pimp/hustler role.

Of course, it was all an act, just rap posturing which comes with the genre. Still, it would be surprising for a guy who says he doesn't want to talk anymore about "hustling and making money" to so openly embrace hustling and making money just one day before spurning it at a press conference. While I can't begin to say what Snoop is thinking with this career change, a cynic would say that he's just trying to draw attention. And it's working.