Snoop Dogg is 40 today, so raise a 40oz to everybody's favourite lanky rapper and enjoy a collection of the Dawg's best tracks.
There's a lot to choose from and there's little doubt we'll upset a few hardcore Snoop fans out there, but below are a few of our favourite tracks by Snoop D-O-double-G. We've left out fine collaborations with Pharell Williams, Willie Nelson and Jay-Z – as well as disasters with The Pussycat Dolls and Limp Bizkit – and opted for landmarks in the rapper's career.
So, in chronological order, here we go...
Nuthin' But a 'G' Thang
After joining the g-funk pioneer on Dr Dre's first single post-N.W.A, the theme to the film Deep Cover, Snoop partnered Dre again on one of the standout tracks from the Dr's debut solo album, The Chronic.
Gin & Juice
With Dr Dre on production knobs and the g-funk bouncing, this is still probably Snoop's most famous song and is taken from Snoop's own massive-selling debut, Doggystyle. It also inspired the greatest cover version of all time.
2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted
Snoop was acquitted of murder charges a few months prior to making the video for this 1996 collaboration about his and Tupac's respective arrests – and it was filmed just six months before Tupac was eventually shot and killed.
Crazy
One of Snoop's finest tracks. It features his cousin, the late Nate Dogg, on sweet soul vocals and samples Cameo's She's Strange. The track's agreeably grubby digi-dub bassline isn't the first time, or the last, that Snoop found a way to move things beyond the g-funk era.
Vato
Cypress Hill's B-Real partners Snoop on this ominous, low-slung track from Dogg's 2006 album Tha Blue Carpet Treatment. Produced by Pharell William's Neptunes, the song is, apparently, a comment on inter-racial violence between LA's gangs.
Sensual Seduction
Depending on your taste, this 2008 single (also called Sexual Eruption) is either the worst thing Snoop has ever laid down in anger, or one of the weirdest and thus most intriguing. Playing up his pimp persona (and made after he dabbled in the porn industry), it's one of the most ludicrously OTT things he's ever done, his sleazy drawl injecting plenty of steam into the party. At the very least, his use of auto-tune showed he was keeping up with prevailing trends.
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