When the rapper formerly known as Snoop Dogg announced in a July 2012 press conference that, after an extended stay in Jamaica earlier that year, he had embraced the island’s religious philosophy of Rastafarianism, changed his name to the more Rasta-friendly Snoop Lion (“dog” is considered derogatory in Jamaican culture), recorded a new Major Lazer-produced album of reggae songs and filmed a documentary about the experience, the whole endeavor smacked of a gimmicky mid-life crisis. Nearly a year later, it seems Snoop is completely sincere about the transformation…but it’s hard not to pick apart the presentation. When you’re commissioning a film documenting a supposedly profound transitional moment in your life, it’s easy for the exercise to seem like a very bored and very stoned millionaire’s very expensive new hobby. Snoop basically admitted as much in the July presser: “Rap is not a challenge to me. I’ve won every accolade you can get in rap, they call me ‘Uncle Snoop’ in rap. When you’re an uncle, it’s time to find something new.”

Granted, that motivation for reinvention is much less cynical than if Snoop tried to tailor himself to become more sonically suited for 2013, like if he had made an entire dubstep album under his DJ Snoopadelic banner. Adopting the trappings of reggae legends Bunny Wailer and Bob Marley (whom Snoop believes he is “reincarnated” from) is many things, but a shrewd decision to sell more records it is not. So, discounting the hype and speculation surrounding Reincarnated (out today, April 23), as well as the poorly reviewed documentary, we’re left with an album that, barring a few glaring missteps, ends up being a competent, fun, somewhat mindless marriage of American pop music and contemporary reggae. More »