Snoop Dogg

Once one of the most feared gangsta rappers, Snoop Dogg has evolved into the coolest, most chilled of household names — a superstar who has crossed the barrier dividing hardcore adult entertainment from family fun with incredible ease. Master of the laconic, articulate drawl, Snoop's just too smooth to resist.

The tribulations of Snoop's early career — a murder trial, his departure from Death Row Records — appear to have left scant trace of a hangover by the time he cut Tha Last Meal in 2000. On easy-flowing tracks like "Stacey Adams" and "Lay Low" the thug in Snoop gives way to the well-kempt man of cognac and pimped-out leisure.

The Game Is to Be Sold, Not to Be Told (1998) marked Snoop's switch from Death Row Records (hobbled by the imprisonment of Suge Knight) to Master P's No Limit stable. The change in surroundings doesn't seem to bother Snoop one jot, as he breezes through the album as loose and mellifluous as ever.

Everything could have gone horribly wrong for Calvin Broadus, but — as his alter-ego, Snoop Dogg, the cheeky, chappie rapper we know and embrace — he has survived the pitfalls of gangsta-ism and thrives at every level of entertainment, from mean street to play pen (that's his voice in the children's movie Racing Stripes). Silver-tongued misogynist, lairy gigolo, award-winning pornographer, children's-football coach: Snoop is all these things . . . and a world-class rapper.