Norway's Tom Stræte Lagergren (aka Matoma) is a DJ and producer known for his dance-oriented tropical house music. He initially garnered attention with his remixes, scoring a 2015 European hit with a remix of Notorious B.I.G.'s "Old Thing Back," which paved the way for his star-studded 2016 debut, Hakuna Matoma, with vocals by Dua Lipa, Jason Derulo, Becky Hill, and more. In 2018, he reached the Top 20 of the Norwegian and Billboard dance club charts with his sophomore album, One in a Million. Following tracks with MNEK, Ally Brooke, Wilder Woods, and more, Matoma returned in 2021 with the Rytme EP.

Born in Åsnes in 1991, Lagergren initially started out playing classical piano in his youth. It wasn't until his teenage years spent listening to his older brother's music collection -- including albums by Paul van Dyk, Tiesto, and Armin van Buuren -- that he became increasingly interested in electronic dance music. After high school, Lagergren, who had already started remixing and releasing tracks online as Matoma, furthered his studies by earning his bachelor's degree in Music Technology from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. By 2014, he had started to gain international recognition for his Matoma remixes, including cuts for Jessie J, Akon, Enrique Iglesias, and others. In 2015, he scored a hit in Europe and New Zealand with a remix of Notorious B.I.G.'s "Old Thing Back." That year, Lagergren also released his own debut single as Matoma, "Feeling Right (Everything Is Nice)," featuring rapper Wale and Jamaican dancehall singer Popcaan. That track found its way onto his debut LP, Hakuna Matoma, which arrived at the end of the year. Additional guests included Becky Hill, Sean Paul, Astrid S, Akon, Frenship, and remixes of Dua Lipa's "Hotter Than Hell," Jason Derulo's "Try Me," and Coldplay's "Adventure of a Lifetime."

In 2017, Lagergren issued the single "Girl at Coachella" featuring Magic! and D.R.A.M. It was followed by "Party on the West Coast," a tropical redux mix featuring Snoop Dogg and samples from Faith Evans and the late Notorious B.I.G., which was a chart hit in Norway. He also collaborated with British boy band the Vamps on their 2017 song "All Night." Following the track "Lonely" featuring MAX, Matoma released his sophomore LP, One in a Million, in 2018. The set peaked just outside the Top Ten on the Norwegian charts and yielded the modest hit "Slow" featuring Noah Cyrus. The next year, he teamed with MNEK and Kiana Ledé for "Bruised Not Broken" and Bryn Christopher on "All Around the World." An EP, Rytme, arrived in May 2020 and included guest appearances by Brando and Anna Clendening. Following "Good Vibes" with HRVY, Matoma released more of his own non-album singles, including 2020's "Wow" featuring Emma Steinbakken and 2021's "Never Surrender" with Steve Garrigan. ~ Matt Collar & Neil Z. Yeung

A distinctively graceful voice in contemporary R&B, Faith Evans worked behind the scenes as a background vocalist and songwriter prior to breaking through as an artist in 1995. During that year, she released Faith, her first of three platinum or gold albums for the Bad Boy label, and hit the upper reaches of the pop and R&B/hip-hop charts with the plush trifecta of "One More Chance," "You Used to Love Me," and "Soon as I Get Home," the first of which was a collaboration with husband the Notorious B.I.G. Evans' run with Bad Boy also included the Biggie tribute "I'll Be Missing You," a number one pop hit in 1997 and subsequent Grammy winner in the category of Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group. Recordings from Evans became less frequent after she scored a fourth hit with the 2005 Capitol release The First Lady, which topped the R&B/hip-hop chart and was another gold-seller. Every few years through the next decade, she added to her discography with another set of rich, adult-oriented R&B, including Something About Faith, released in 2010 on her own Prolific label, and the 2017 album The King & I, consisting of duets with Biggie.

Born in Lakeland, Florida, Faith Evans grew up in Newark, New Jersey, where she began singing in church at the age of two. A high-school honor student, she performed in her school's musical productions and earned a scholarship to Fordham University. After one year, she left the Bronx campus to put her jazz and classical training to use in the field of contemporary R&B. From 1992 through 1994, she wrote songs and/or sang backup for Al B. Sure!, Hi-Five, Christopher Williams, Usher, and Mary J. Blige. While working on Usher, for which she co-wrote six tracks and sang backup, Evans was offered a Bad Boy contract by Sean "Puffy" Combs. She hadn't aspired to become an artist, but struck a deal, and in 1995 was behind some of Bad Boy's biggest hits. First was the "Stay with Me" remix of "One More Chance," a number two pop, number one R&B/hip-hop hit headlined by the Notorious B.I.G., who Evans married the previous year. Next came the Top 25 pop, Top Five R&B/hip-hop singles "You Used to Love Me" and "Soon as I Get Home," which propelled Faith, Evans' debut album, to platinum status.

As Evans' solo career was in ascent across 1995 and 1996, her work appeared on numerous high-profile projects, including material from Teddy Thompson, Pebbles, Total, Monifah, Color Me Badd, Horace Brown, A Tribe Called Quest, Case, 112, and Soul for Real. She also contributed to the soundtracks for Waiting to Exhale, High School High, and The Preacher's Wife. In 1997, following the murder of Biggie, the grief-stricken Evans co-wrote and was featured on the tribute single "I'll Be Missing You," which became one of that year's biggest hits, topping the pop and R&B/hip-hop charts and eventually winning a Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group.

Evans' sophomore effort, Keep the Faith, followed in 1998 and spun off several R&B hits over the next year, including "Love Like This," "All Night Long," and the Babyface-produced R&B/hip-hop number one "Never Gonna Let You Go." In the meantime, she worked with Aaron Hall, Tevin Campbell, and DMX, among others, and also made guest appearances on two 1999 hits, Whitney Houston's "Heartbreak Hotel" and Eric Benét's cover of Toto and Cheryl Lynn's "Georgy Porgy." She eventually married record executive Todd Russaw, who took an active role in helping manage her career.

In 2001, Evans released her third album, Faithfully, a more uptempo recording that received some of her strongest reviews. It also produced hit singles in "You Gets No Love" and "I Love You," and her duet with Carl Thomas on "Can't Believe" was nominated for a Grammy. It would be her last Bad Boy album, ending a fruitful association, yet her next move with Capitol, The First Lady, missed the top spot of the Billboard 200 by one position in 2005. After a five-year hiatus from recording, during which she penned the African American Literary Award-winning memoir Keep the Faith, Evans released Something About Faith on her own Prolific label, with distribution from eOne. It topped Billboard's Independent Albums chart, went Top Five R&B/hip-hop, and debuted at number 15 on the Billboard 200. Its first single, "Gone Already," was nominated for a Grammy in the category of Best Female R&B Vocal Performance. Evans and Russaw divorced in 2011.

After Evans appeared on El DeBarge's "Lay with You" and Rahsaan Patterson's "Crazy (Baby)" in 2012, she starred on the TV One reality series R&B Divas beside Nicci Gilbert, Monifah, Syleena Johnson, and Keke Wyatt. A tie-in compilation for the show was released on Prolific that October, with proceeds directed to the Whitney E. Houston Academy. In September 2014, "I Deserve It," featuring Missy Elliott, was released as the first single from the stylistically broad Incomparable, which followed two months later. The King & I, a set of duets with the Notorious B.I.G., followed on Rhino in May 2017. It included a mix of familiar and previously unreleased vocals from Evans' late partner, as well as appearances from Snoop Dogg and Jadakiss. In July 2018, Evans married Stevie J, a songwriter and producer who had worked on and off with her dating back to the Bad Boy era. A duet from the newlyweds, "A Minute," was out that month. ~ Andy Kellman

In just a few short years, the Notorious B.I.G. went from a Brooklyn street hustler to the savior of East Coast hip-hop to a tragic victim of the culture of violence he depicted so realistically on his records. His all-too-brief odyssey almost immediately took on mythic proportions, especially since his murder followed the shooting of rival Tupac Shakur by only six months. In death, the man also known as Biggie Smalls became a symbol of the senseless violence that plagued inner-city America in the waning years of the 20th century. Whether or not his death was really the result of a much-publicized feud between the East and West Coast hip-hop scenes, it did mark the point where both sides stepped back from a rivalry that had gone too far. Hip-hop's self-image would never quite be the same, and neither would public perception. The aura of martyrdom that surrounds the Notorious B.I.G. sometimes threatens to overshadow his musical legacy, which was actually quite significant. Aided by Sean "Puffy" Combs' radio-friendly sensibility, Biggie reestablished East Coast rap's viability by leading it into the post-Dr. Dre gangsta age. Where fellow East Coasters the Wu-Tang Clan slowly built an underground following, Biggie crashed onto the charts and became a star right out of the box. In the process, he helped Combs' Bad Boy label supplant Death Row as the biggest hip-hop imprint in America, and also paved the way to popular success for other East Coast talents like Jay-Z and Nas. Biggie was a gifted storyteller with a sense of humor and an eye for detail, and his narratives about the often-violent life of the streets were rarely romanticized; instead, they were told with a gritty, objective realism that won him enormous respect and credibility. The general consensus in the rap community was that when his life was cut short, Biggie was just getting started.

The Notorious B.I.G. was born Christopher Wallace on May 21, 1972, and grew up in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. He was interested in rap from a young age, performing with local groups like the Old Gold Brothers and the Techniques, the latter of whom brought the teenaged Wallace his first trip to a recording studio. He had already adopted the name Biggie Smalls at this point, a reference to his ample frame: he would grow to be over six feet tall and nearly 400 pounds. Although he was a good student, he dropped out of high school at age 17 to live life on the streets. Attracted by the money and flashy style of local drug dealers, he started selling crack for a living. He got busted on a trip to North Carolina and spent nine months in jail, and upon his release, he made some demo recordings on a friend's four-track. The resulting tape fell into the hands of Mister Cee, a DJ working with Big Daddy Kane; Cee in turn passed the tape on to hip-hop magazine The Source, which gave Biggie a positive write-up in a regular feature on unsigned artists. Thanks to the publicity, Biggie caught the attention of Uptown Records producer Sean "Puffy" Combs, who signed him immediately. With his new daughter in need of immediate financial support, Biggie kept dealing drugs for a short time until Combs found out and laid down the law. Not long after Biggie's signing, Combs split from Uptown to form his own label, Bad Boy, and took Biggie with him.

Changing his primary stage name from Biggie Smalls to the Notorious B.I.G., the newly committed rapper made his recording debut on a 1993 remix of Mary J. Blige's single "Real Love." He soon guested on another Blige remix, "What's the 411?," and contributed his first solo cut, "Party and Bullshit," to the soundtrack of the film Who's the Man? Now with a considerable underground buzz behind him, the Notorious B.I.G. delivered his debut album, Ready to Die, in September 1994. Its lead single, "Juicy," went gold, and the follow-up smash, "Big Poppa," achieved platinum sales and went Top Ten on the pop and R&B charts. Biggie's third single, "One More Chance," tied Michael Jackson's "Scream" for the highest debut ever on the pop charts; it entered at number five en route to an eventual peak at number two, and went all the way to number one on the R&B side. By the time the dust settled, Ready to Die had sold over four million copies and turned the Notorious B.I.G. into a hip-hop sensation -- the first major star the East Coast had produced since the rise of Dr. Dre's West Coast G-funk.

Not long after Ready to Die was released, Biggie married R&B singer and Bad Boy labelmate Faith Evans. In November 1994, West Coast gangsta star Tupac Shakur was shot several times in the lobby of a New York recording studio and robbed of thousands of dollars in jewelry. Shakur survived and accused Combs and his onetime friend Biggie of planning the attack, a charge both of them fervently denied. The ill will gradually snowballed into a heated rivalry between West and East Coast camps, with upstart Bad Boy now challenging Suge Knight's Death Row empire for hip-hop supremacy. Meanwhile, Biggie turned his energies elsewhere. He shepherded the career of Junior M.A.F.I.A., a group consisting of some of his childhood rap partners, and guested on their singles "Player's Anthem" and "Get Money." He also boosted several singles by his labelmates, such as Total's "Can't You See" and 112's "Only You," and worked with superstars like Michael Jackson (HIStory) and R. Kelly ("[You to Be] Happy," from R. Kelly). With the singles from Ready to Die still burning up the airwaves as well, Biggie ended 1995 as not only the top-selling rap artist, but also the biggest solo male act on both the pop and R&B charts. He also ran into trouble with the law on more than one occasion. A concert promoter accused him and members of his entourage of assaulting him when he refused to pay the promised fee after a concert cancellation. Later in the year, Biggie pled guilty to criminal mischief after attacking two harassing autograph seekers with a baseball bat.

The year 1996 was even more tumultuous. More legal problems ensued after police found marijuana and weapons in a raid on Biggie's home in Teaneck, New Jersey. Meanwhile, Junior M.A.F.I.A. member Lil' Kim released her first solo album under Biggie's direction, and the two made little effort to disguise their concurrent love affair. 2Pac, still nursing a grudge against Biggie and Combs, recorded a vicious slam on the East Coast scene called "Hit 'Em Up," in which he taunted Biggie about having slept with Faith Evans (who was by now estranged from her husband). What was more, during the recording sessions for Biggie's second album, he suffered rather serious injuries in a car accident and was confined to a wheelchair for a time. Finally, in September 1996, Tupac Shakur was murdered in a drive-by shooting on the Las Vegas strip. Given their very public feud, it didn't take long for rumors of Biggie's involvement to start swirling, although none were substantiated. Biggie was also criticized for not attending an anti-violence hip-hop summit held in Harlem in the wake of Shakur's death.

Observers hoped that Shakur's murder would serve as a wake-up call for gangsta rap in general, that on-record boasting had gotten out of hand and spilled into reality. Sadly, it would take another tragedy to drive that point home. In the early morning hours of March 9, 1997, the Notorious B.I.G. was leaving a party at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles thrown by Vibe magazine in celebration of the Soul Train Music Awards. He sat in the passenger side of his SUV, with his bodyguard in the driver's seat and Junior M.A.F.I.A. member Lil' Cease in the back. According to most witnesses, another vehicle pulled up on the right side of the SUV while it was stopped at a red light, and six to ten shots were fired. Biggie's bodyguard rushed him to the nearby Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, but it was already too late. As much as Shakur was mourned, Biggie's death was perhaps even more shocking; it meant that Shakur's death was not an isolated incident, and that hip-hop's highest-profile talents might be caught in the middle of an escalating war. Naturally, speculation ran rampant that Biggie's killers were retaliating for Shakur's death, and since the case remains unsolved, the world may never know.

In the aftermath of the tragedy, the release of the Notorious B.I.G.'s second album went ahead as planned at the end of March. The eerily titled Life After Death was a sprawling, guest-laden double-disc set that seemed designed to compete with 2Pac's All Eyez on Me in terms of ambition and epic scope. Unsurprisingly, it entered the charts at number one, selling nearly 700,000 copies in its first week of release and spending a total of four weeks on top. The first single, "Hypnotize," went platinum and hit number one on the pop chart, and its follow-up, "Mo Money Mo Problems," duplicated both feats, making the Notorious B.I.G. the first artist ever to score two posthumous number one hits. A third single, "Sky's the Limit," went gold, and Life After Death was certified ten-times platinum approximately two years after its release. Plus, Combs -- now rechristened Puff Daddy -- and Faith Evans scored one of 1997's biggest singles with their tribute "I'll Be Missing You." In 1999, an album of previously unreleased B.I.G. material, Born Again, was released and entered the charts at number one. It eventually went double platinum. Six years later, Duets: The Final Chapter (studio scraps paired with new verses from several MCs and vocalists) surfaced and reached number three on the album chart.

In the years following Christopher Wallace's death, little official progress was made in the LAPD's murder investigation, and it began to look as if the responsible parties would never be brought to justice. The 2Pac retaliation theory still holds sway in many quarters, and it has also been speculated that members of the Crips gang murdered Wallace in a dispute over money owed for security services. In an article for Rolling Stone, and later a full-length book titled Labyrinth, journalist Randall Sullivan argued that Suge Knight hired onetime LAPD officer David Mack -- a convicted bank robber with ties to the Bloods -- to arrange a hit on Wallace, and that the gunman was a hitman and mortgage broker named Amir Muhammad. Sullivan further argued that when it became clear how many corrupt LAPD officers were involved with Death Row Records, the department hushed up as much as it could and all but abandoned detective Russell Poole's investigation recommendations.

Documentary filmmaker Nick Broomfield used Labyrinth as a basis for 2002's Biggie and Tupac, which featured interviews with Poole and Knight, among others. In April 2002, Faith Evans and Voletta Wallace (Biggie's mother) filed a civil suit against the LAPD alleging wrongful death, among other charges. In September of that year, the Los Angeles Times published a report alleging that the Notorious B.I.G. had paid members of the Crips one million dollars to murder 2Pac, and even supplied the gun used. Several of Biggie's relatives and friends stepped forward to say that the rapper had been recording in New Jersey, not masterminding a hit in Las Vegas; the report was also roundly criticized in the hip-hop community, which was anxious to avoid reopening old wounds. Outside legal matters, the B.I.G. legacy continued to be burnished with the 2007 compilation Greatest Hits, the 2009 biopic Notorious, and 2017's The King & I. The third posthumous duets album, The King & I was co-credited to Evans, whose new vocals were combined with a mix of familiar and previously unreleased verses from Biggie.

In 2019, to mark the 25th anniversary of his landmark Ready to Die, Rhino reissued the set as a deluxe box set that included photos and stories from the era. ~ Steve Huey

One of the most iconic figures to emerge from the early-'90s G-funk era, Snoop Dogg evolved beyond his gangsta rap beginnings to become a lovable pop culture fixture with forays into television, movies, football coaching, and wrestling while expanding his musical reach far beyond his primary genre. Introduced through Dr. Dre's Top Five rap hit "Deep Cover" (1992), Snoop quickly became one of the most famous stars in rap, partially due to his drawled, laconic rhyming, as well as the realistic violence implied in his lyrics. His own Doggystyle (1993) become the first debut album to enter the Billboard 200 at number one, and featured the Top Ten pop hits "What's My Name" and "Gin and Juice." After the popularity of gangsta rap waned in the late '90s, he proved himself to be a masterful chameleon, riding his pot-loving image in various directions that helped buoy his career through the 2000s. His biggest hits as a lead artist during the first decade of the 21st century included "Beautiful" (2003) and the chart-topping "Drop It Like It's Hot" (2004), and he was also featured on a slew of major hits by fellow rappers, R&B crooners, and pop groups alike. The 2010s saw him branch out into reggae (2013's Reincarnated), house (as a DJ), and gospel (2018's Bible of Love), but he has remained hip-hop at his core, releasing projects in the 2020s such as The Algorithm (2021), his first album as executive creative consultant for Def Jam, and BODR (2022), which marked a return to Death Row Records, his first label home.

Nicknamed Snoop by his mother because of his appearance, Calvin Broadus was raised in Long Beach, California, where he frequently had trouble with the law. Not long after his high school graduation, he was arrested for possession of cocaine, beginning a period of three years when he was often imprisoned. He found escape from a life of crime through music. Snoop began recording homemade tapes with his friend Warren G, who happened to be the stepbrother of N.W.A's Dr. Dre. Warren G gave a tape to Dre, who was considerably impressed with Snoop's style, and began collaborating with the rapper.

When Dre decided to make his tentative first stab at a solo career in 1992 with the theme song for the film Deep Cover, he had Snoop rap with him. "Deep Cover" started a buzz about Snoop that escalated into full-fledged mania when Dre released his own debut album, The Chronic, on Death Row Records late in 1992. Snoop rapped on The Chronic as much as Dre, and his drawled vocals were as important to the record's success as its P-Funk-inspired bass grooves. Dre's singles "Nuthin' But a 'G' Thang" and "Dre Day," which prominently featured Snoop, became Top Ten pop crossover hits in the spring of 1993, setting the stage for Snoop's much-anticipated debut album, Doggystyle. While he was recording the album with Dre in August, Snoop was arrested in connection with the drive-by shooting death of Phillip Woldermarian. According to the charges, the rapper's bodyguard, McKinley Lee, shot Woldermarian as Snoop drove the vehicle; the rapper claimed it was self-defense, alleging that the victim was stalking Snoop. Following a performance at the MTV Music Awards in September 1993, he turned himself over to authorities.

After many delays, Doggystyle was finally released on Death Row in November of 1993, and it became the first debut album to enter the charts at number one. Despite reviews that claimed the album was a carbon copy of The Chronic, the Top Ten singles "What's My Name?" and "Gin & Juice" kept Doggystyle at the top of the charts during early 1994, as did the considerable controversy over Snoop's arrest and his lyrics, which were considered exceedingly violent and sexist. During an English tour in the spring of 1994, tabloids and a Tory minister pleaded for the government to kick the rapper out of the country, largely based on his arrest. Snoop exploited his impending trial by shooting a short film based on the Doggystyle song "Murder Was the Case" and releasing an accompanying soundtrack, which debuted at number one in 1994. By that time, Doggystyle had gone quadruple platinum.

Snoop spent much of 1995 preparing for the case, which finally went to trial late in the year. In February 1996, he was cleared of all charges and began working on his second album, this time without Dre as producer. Nevertheless, when The Doggfather was finally released in November 1996, it bore all the evidence of a Dre-produced G-funk record. The album was greeted with mixed reviews, and it initially sold well, but it failed to produce a hit along the lines of "What's My Name?" or "Gin & Juice." Part of the reason for the moderate success of The Doggfather was the decline of gangsta rap. 2Pac, who had become a friend of Snoop's during 1996, died weeks before the release of The Doggfather, and Dre had left Death Row to his partner Suge Knight, who was indicted on racketeering charges by the end of 1996. Consequently, Snoop's second album got lost in the shuffle, stalling at sales of two million, which was disappointing for a superstar.

Perhaps sensing something was wrong, Snoop began to revamp his public image, moving away from his gangsta roots toward a calmer lyrical aesthetic. He also began making gestures toward the rock community, signing up to tour with Lollapalooza 1997 and talking about two separate collaborations with Beck and Marilyn Manson. The solo Da Game Is to Be Sold Not to Be Told, Snoop's first effort for No Limit, followed in 1998; No Limit Top Dogg appeared a year later, and Dead Man Walkin' the year after that. Tha Last Meal followed in December of that same year. The heavy release schedule resulted in varying musical quality from album to album, but by the turn of the century, Snoop had become such a cultural phenomenon that his albums became almost secondary to the personality behind them. An autobiography appeared in 2001, followed by a stream of movie roles in several high-profile pictures. Late in 2002, Snoop released his first album for Capitol, Paid tha Cost to Be da Bo$$. He then switched to Geffen for 2004's R&G (Rhythm & Gangsta): The Masterpiece. The hit album spawned Snoop's first number one single, the Pharrell Williams-produced "Drop It Like It's Hot," as well as the hit "Signs" with Justin Timberlake and Charlie Wilson. R&G was followed a year later by Welcome to tha Chuuch: Da Album, a collection of tracks from the Welcome to the Chuuch mixtape series. That same year, he hosted a West Coast peace summit in hopes of squashing all beefs.

In 2006, he appeared on Tha Dogg Pound's Cali Iz Active and Ice Cube's Laugh Now, Cry Later. Toward the end of the year, the intentionally leaked "My Peoples" freestyle appeared. The track paid tribute to many of those involved in Cali's Latin rap community, so it was no big surprise when "Vato," with Cypress Hill's B Real, became his next album's lead-off single. The hard and very G-funk Tha Blue Carpet Treatment triumphantly capped off a year of heavy West Coast activity. In late 2007, he recruited two hip-hop veterans -- new jack swing legend Teddy Riley and West Coast hero DJ Quik -- and formed the production team QDT Muzic. The team oversaw Snoop's 2008 album, Ego Trippin', which included the single "Sensual Seduction."

In 2009, he issued Malice N Wonderland, the maiden release of a new alliance with the reactivated Priority label, which also signed him on as its creative chairman. He promoted the album a couple months prior to its street date when he hosted the live wrestling television broadcast WWE Raw. A year later, the CD/DVD set More Malice rounded up some odds and ends from the album and packaged them with a DVD featuring the Malice N Wonderland short film. He maintained his mainstream image with a star appearance on Katy Perry's "California Gurls," nabbing Snoop his third number one on the Billboard Hot 100. In 2011, he released Doggumentary, an album he considered the sequel to his classic debut. The record featured production from the likes of Swizz Beats, DJ Khalil, and Scott Storch, with guest artists including Kanye West, John Legend, Wiz Khalifa, and Willie Nelson. Also arriving that same year was a feature film with Khalifa, Mac + Devin Go to High School, along with its accompanying soundtrack.

After a 2012 trip to Jamaica, Snoop Dogg returned rechristened as Snoop Lion, and with the help of producer Diplo, he released his first all-reggae album, Reincarnated, on RCA in 2013. Another name change came later in the year when he became Snoopzilla and joined modern funkster Dâm-Funk for the project/album 7 Days of Funk. He returned to Snoop Dogg in 2015 when he partnered with Pharrell Williams for the hip-hop effort Bush. The album included the single "Peaches N Cream" and featured guest appearances from Stevie Wonder, Justin Timberlake, Robin Thicke, and Charlie Wilson. Coolaid, a back-to-basics effort for which Swizz Beatz served as executive producer, was released in 2016. That same year, Snoop teamed up with Martha Stewart for VH1's Martha & Snoop's Potluck Dinner Party, a variety show that featured bits with guest actors and performances by hip-hop musical guests. The show aired into 2017, the same year that Snoop issued the simultaneously nostalgic and in-the-moment Neva Left, which referenced classics by Biz Markie and A Tribe Called Quest.

For his 16th set, Snoop once again changed course, this time dipping into the gospel world for 2018's Snoop Dogg Presents Bible of Love. The collection featured guests from both the gospel and hip-hop worlds, topping the Billboard Gospel Albums chart upon release. A year later, Snoop returned to the streets for his 17th album, I Wanna Thank Me, a nostalgic set that celebrated his legacy while asserting his enduring place in contemporary hip-hop. In addition to guests YG and Slick Rick, the LP also included an appearance by the late Nate Dogg. In 2020, while locked down in quarantine due to the global threat of COVID-19, Snoop released the restless single "I Wanna Go Outside," setting his feelings of housebound frustration and concerns for the world's health to a funky, old-school instrumental. The swaggering "C.E.O." appeared in early 2021 on From tha Streets 2 tha Suites, a brief set which included appearances by Mozzy, Devin the Dude, and Larry June, and was released on April 20. Snoop was hired as Def Jam's executive creative consultant in June, and his first album with the label, The Algorithm, appeared in November. The sprawling set included guests such as Usher, Benny the Butcher, Mary J. Blige, Too $hort, and dozens of others. Snoop offered yet another album only four months later. The February 2022 release of BODR -- short for "Bacc on Death Row" -- coincided with Snoop acquiring the trademark rights to the label that issued his first two albums. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine & Neil Z. Yeung