Snoop Dogg

Gangsta rap superstar Snoop Dogg (aka Calvin Cordozar Broadus, Jr.) has sold more than 30 million albums over the course of his career, which began with a collaboration on Dr. Dre’s album The Chronic in 1992.

Snoop’s 1993 solo debut Doggystyle was a huge success, garnering the number one slot on both the Billboard 200 and the U.S. R&B charts. His second album, The Dogfather, released in 1996, was equally popular.

The singles “Who Am I (What's My Name)?” and “Gin and Juice”, both from The Dogfather, were among the most-played songs in the entire country that year, and each spent several months on the charts.

His long discography includes as assortment of highly successful albums, including Da Game Is to Be Sold, Not to Be Told (1998), No Limit Top Dogg (1999), Tha Last Meal (2000), Paid tha Cost to Be da Boss (2002), R&G (Rhythm & Gangsta): The Masterpiece (2004), Tha Blue Carpet Treatment (2006), Ego Trippin' (2008), Malice n Wonderland (2009), Doggumentary (2011), and Reincarnated (2013).

Snoop got his first taste of music while singing and playing piano as a young boy in the Golgotha Trinity Baptist Church choir in his hometown of Long Beach, CA, but started to rap when he was in the sixth grade.

No stranger to the law, Snoop was allegedly a member of the Crips gangs as a youth (though he denies affiliation), did six-months for drug possession in the early 90s, and was charged with murder in 1993 when his then-bodyguard shot and killed a rival gang member. Both men were later acquitted of the charges.

He has also been arrested multiple times for marijuana possession, a drug he openly enjoys.

The rapper has also worked extensively in film and TV, including a featured role in Training Day alongside Denzel Washington, the lead in the horror film Bones, and as the drug dealing snitch Huggy Bear in 2004’s Starsky & Hutch remake. He founded film production company Snoopadelic Films in 2005.