However, the film also gives plenty of context for this surprising shift in 40-year-old Snoop’s career the filmmakers hammer home the fact that Snoop grew up in Long Beach, California, surrounded by violence. The recording of the reggae album in Jamaica is the main reason Snoopadelic Films teamed with Vice Films for this documentary, directed by Andy Capper. “That was the language that hip-hop communicates, but reggae music can articulate with different language, which is the language of love, struggle and peace at the same time.” “It’s not that I don’t want to do it anymore I just didn’t want to do it on this particular record,” Snoop explained of his once-frequent profanity at the TIFF press conference for Reincarnated. His forthcoming album, Reincarnated, made in Jamaica with executive producer Diplo and various producers and co-writers, is expletive- and negativity-free, something he could perform at the White House. That wasn’t always the case. In the film, which premiered on Friday at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), Snoop’s daughter Cori B says her father comes home from his trip happier, smiling and singing Jamaican music.
It’s a significant moment: Snoop, who is given the name “Berhane” (which means light) during the baptism, has been embraced by true Rastas. “I feel love right now,” says Snoop, beaming.
The marijuana smoke-filled opening of Reincarnated – the documentary chronicling the personal and spiritual evolution of rapper and one-time gangbanger Snoop Dogg to reggae artist and Rasta Snoop Lion – quickly cuts to shots of a bonfire and singing.Īs Snoop’s journey to discover the source, struggle and meaning behind the peaceable Rastafari ideological movement unfolds, the fire scene reappears as part of a holy groundation ceremony at the Nyabinghi Centre in Jamaica.