Snoop drops the Dogg, aims for reggae style

TORONTO (REUTERS) - Rapper Snoop Dogg insists, for now, he is dropping the 'Dogg' to take on a new moniker, Snoop Lion.

Snoop became one of the world's most recognisable names in rap music after his 1993 debut album Doggystyle helped forge the rise of gangsta rap. But the California singer and actor with the tough image of guns, drugs and "pimping" out women now claims he is now embracing reggae music, peace and love.

His transformation, he told reporters on Friday at the Toronto International Film Festival about a new documentary chronicling the change, should not be too surprising: "I was always saying to myself I was Bob Marley reincarnated." His new nonfiction film, made by his own company, is called just that, Reincarnated.

Like many music documentaries in recent years, it serves partly as a promotional piece for his upcoming reggae album of the same name, showing how each song was recorded, including with reggae master Bunny Wailer. But much of the first part of Snoop's journey to seek Rasta culture in Jamaica is spent talking about his love of smoking marijuana and sharing the local variety. In one scene he is taken into the jungle by locals to smoke marijuana plants picked straight from the ground.