SNOOP DREAMS

Following his golden performance at the Paris Olympics, the hip-hop legend is enjoying yet another renaissance. This fall, he'll join The Voice and release a new Dr. Dre-produced album, all while looking for new joint ventures-including the kind you roll-that will keep his grandchildren set for life. Just don't ask him to eat escargots.

- MATT CRAIG

STRIDING THROUGH THE streets of Paris, the Olympic flame held high above his head, Snoop Dogg was surely the first torchbearer ever asked to do the Crip Walk-the hip-hop strut made famous in his "Drop It Like It's Hot" video-by an adoring fan. The 52-year-old rap legend happily obliged, much to the delight of the French crowd.

Moments like that are why people of all ages, genders and races feel as if they actually know Snoop, like a friend who has been in their lives for 30 years. "I'm not distant," he tells Forbes as he kicks back in the private casino at his 25,000-squarefoot workspace-cum-playground in Inglewood, California, that he calls The Compound. "I'm, like, touchable."

That familiarity, combined with the unmistakable figure cut by his slender 6-foot-4 frame and long braided hair, make it difficult for the rapper born Calvin Broadus Jr.to go out in public without causing a scene. It's why he spends so much time at The Compound, which also features recording studios, an arcade and a basketball court. Armed with a fresh blunt and a comically oversized ashtray, he attempts to explain why seemingly everyone wants a piece of the D-O-double-G these days.

"I just think when you're organic and authentic to who you are, eventually the world will catch up," he says. "What I didn't do was try to follow the fads or the trends. I just stayed me the whole way."

The public perception of Snoop has certainly come a long way since his early years in and out of prison and his emergence as a West Coast rap pioneer, beginning with 1993's Doggystyle. While sentiments around hip-hop and cannabis have shifted in the decades since, Snoop has also worked hard at reinvention-while staying true to who he is. Whether he's putting out a reggae or gospel record, appearing in movies such as Old School and Training Day or producing an animated show for kids, Snoop's brand has morphed from parental-advisory to family-friendly.