​E-40 Sets August Release for 40-Song Quadruple Album ‘Turning My Money Over'

 

Official artwork for E-40's upcoming quadruple album, "Turning My Money Over." Dropping Aug. 28, the 40-song project features a sprawling lineup of guest appearances spanning multiple generations of hip-hop and R&B. 

More than three decades after establishing Northern California’s independent rap blueprint, E-40 is setting another industry milestone.

​The Vallejo rap veteran has officially announced "Turning My Money Over", an ambitious quadruple album featuring 40 tracks spread across four discs. Scheduled to arrive on Aug. 28, 2026, the project is divided into four themed sections: "Turning My Money Over Once," "Twice," "Thrice," and "Cuatro".

​E-40 unveiled the massive project through his social media platforms, declaring, "The greatest game spitter of all time is BACK!".

​The 40-song tracklist confirms appearances from a sprawling lineup of West Coast staples, Southern legends, and R&B veterans. The guest list includes long-standing collaborators like Too $hort and B-Legit, alongside Busta Rhymes, Killer Mike, Anderson .Paak, Al B. Sure!, and Larry June. The album’s lead single, "Sumn Ain't Right" featuring Juvenile, is already available.

​Among the most anticipated tracks are "Trunk Is Alive" featuring Too $hort and B-Legit, "Play If You Want" with Busta Rhymes, and "Night In The Bay" pairing E-40 with Anderson .Paak and Al B. Sure!.

​The expansive format continues a long tradition of multi-disc releases for E-40. Throughout his career, he has repeatedly challenged standard album structures with massive, multi-volume drops like the "Revenue Retrievin'" and "The Block Brochure" series. Delivering exactly 40 songs directly ties the album's concept to the rapper's iconic stage name.

​BMI Honors Nas with Icon Award for Three Decades of Hip-Hop Influence

​Grammy-winning rapper Nas poses for a portrait. Broadcast Music, Inc. announced that the Queensbridge lyricist will receive the BMI Icon Award during the 2026 BMI R&B/Hip-Hop Awards on Aug. 26 in Los Angeles. (Photo courtesy of Mass Appeal)

Broadcast Music, Inc. will celebrate three decades of lyrical innovation by bestowing one of its highest individual honors on Queensbridge rap titan Nas.

​BMI announced that the Grammy-winning rapper and songwriter will receive the BMI Icon Award during the 2026 BMI R&B/Hip-Hop Awards. The private ceremony is scheduled for Wednesday, Aug. 26, in Los Angeles.

​Nas, born Nasir Jones, is being recognized for his prolific songwriting and his immeasurable influence on hip-hop and popular music.

​“Nas has both defined and elevated hip-hop through his groundbreaking storytelling, lyrical excellence and a lasting commitment to artistic innovation,” Catherine Brewton, BMI Vice President, Creative, Atlanta, said in a statement. “From his earliest works to the music mogul that he is today, Nas is a true icon whose legacy continues to inspire artists, influence culture and shape the sound of hip-hop for generations.”.

​Nas burst onto the national scene with his 1994 debut album, "Illmatic", which helped redefine East Coast rap through its vivid storytelling and intricate lyricism. The landmark project was inducted into the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry in 2021. Since his debut, Nas has released 17 studio albums and sold more than 35 million records worldwide.

​The evening will also salute the songwriters, producers, and publishers behind the past year’s 35 most-performed R&B and hip-hop songs.

Lecrae-Co-Founded Reach Records Clears Early Hurdle in Capitol CMG Lawsuit

Lecrae, who co-founded Reach Records with Ben Washer in 2004, appears in an undated promotional photo. Lecrae is not individually named as a plaintiff in the label’s lawsuit against Capitol Christian Music Group, which a federal judge has allowed to proceed. (Photo courtesy of Reach Records)

The label co-founded by Lecrae alleges Capitol CMG abandoned a multimillion-dollar acquisition after representing that the purchase price had been approved.

A federal judge has refused to throw out a lawsuit from Reach Records, allowing the influential Christian hip-hop label to pursue claims that a Universal Music Group division backed away from a multimillion-dollar acquisition after representing that the price was final.

U.S. District Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw Jr. denied Capitol Christian Music Group’s motion to dismiss the case July 21 in the Middle District of Tennessee.

The decision keeps alive Reach’s claims of breach of contract, intentional misrepresentation and negligent misrepresentation. It is not a finding that Capitol CMG violated a contract or misled the label.

At this stage, the judge was required to accept Reach’s properly pleaded factual allegations as true and determine whether they presented legally plausible claims. Crenshaw found that all three claims met that standard.

Reach Records LLC and The Reach Group LLC filed the lawsuit Dec. 10, 2025. Lecrae, who founded Reach with Ben Washer in 2004, is not individually named as a plaintiff.

According to the judge’s summary of the allegations, Capitol CMG President Brad O’Donnell told Washer on June 14, 2025, that a UMG investment committee would need to approve the proposed acquisition.

Reach alleges O’Donnell told Washer several days later that the committee had approved both the transaction and the final purchase price.

The companies signed a letter of intent Aug. 8, 2025. The document treated the purchase price as binding and said it could not be renegotiated unless final due diligence uncovered materially adverse information, according to the opinion.

The agreement also established a process through which the companies could mutually approve a price adjustment after due diligence.

READ THE FULL COURT RULING

The companies then completed five rounds of due diligence.

Reach alleges Capitol CMG did not identify or communicate any materially adverse finding that would have activated the price-adjustment provision.

Drafts of a final purchase agreement moved between the companies during August and September, with the proposed price unchanged, according to the court’s account.

Reach says the deal unraveled Sept. 12.

The label alleges O’Donnell said another level of internal approval was required and that the agreed price was too high because of the earnings multiple used to calculate it. The acquisition was never completed.

Capitol CMG argued that the letter of intent was not a completed acquisition contract, but part of the continuing negotiations toward a final purchase agreement.

Crenshaw found that argument insufficient to end the case.

Although other parts of the proposed transaction remained unfinished, the judge said the letter of intent expressly identified the purchase price as one of its binding provisions.

“Reach has plausibly alleged the existence of an enforceable contract and CMG’s breach,” Crenshaw wrote.

The judge also allowed Reach’s two misrepresentation claims to continue.

Capitol CMG argued that Reach had not sufficiently alleged that O’Donnell knowingly made a false statement or that the label reasonably relied on what he said.

Crenshaw ruled that Reach had provided enough detail about the disputed statements, who allegedly made them, when they were made and the financial injury the label says it suffered.

Reach alleges it lost time and work preparing for the closing, along with the money it expected to receive from the sale. The proposed purchase price has not been publicly disclosed beyond the court’s description of it as a multimillion-dollar amount.

Capitol CMG will have an opportunity to dispute Reach’s account and present evidence as the case continues.

The conflict places one of Christian hip-hop’s foundational independent labels opposite the faith-based music operation of the world’s largest music company.

Reach began in 2004 and developed a catalog that helped move Christian rap beyond a narrowly defined religious market. Lecrae’s 2014 album, “Anomaly,” became the first release to top the Billboard 200 and Billboard’s Gospel Albums chart in the same week.

Capitol CMG is UMG’s Christian and gospel music operation. Official company materials identify O’Donnell as its longtime president and list a roster that includes Tasha Cobbs Leonard, Tye Tribbett, TobyMac, Amy Grant and Chris Tomlin.

The case now moves deeper into discovery, allowing the parties to seek documents, testimony and other evidence about the negotiations and the internal approval process.

Discovery is currently scheduled to close Dec. 4. Motions seeking a judgment before trial are due March 30, 2027, and a trial is set for Sept. 14, 2027. Those dates could change, and the case could be settled or resolved without a trial.

For Reach, the ruling is a procedural victory rather than a final judgment. It gives the label an opportunity to pursue evidence supporting its claim that Capitol CMG walked away from a price the companies had already agreed would be binding.

Trial for Suspect in 1996 Killing of Tupac Shakur Begins Aug. 10

​Duane "Keffe D" Davis, shown in this booking photograph provided by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. Davis is scheduled to stand trial starting Aug. 10, 2026, on murder charges in connection with the 1996 killing of rapper Tupac Shakur.

For nearly three decades, the Sept. 7, 1996, drive-by shooting of Tupac Shakur has stood as hip-hop'smost notorious unsolved murder. On Monday, that officially changes.

​Jury selection and trial proceedings are scheduled to begin Aug. 10 in Las Vegas for Duane "Keffe D" Davis, the 63-year-old former gang leader accused of orchestrating the ambush that claimed the life of the 25-year-old rap icon.

​The trial represents a surreal collision of past and present. Shakur was killed at the absolute peak of his commercial power, riding the massive success of Death Row Records' "All Eyez on Me." His death — followed six months later by the murder of Christopher "The Notorious B.I.G." Wallace in Los Angeles — effectively ended the East Coast-West Coast rivalry that defined 1990s hip-hop, leaving generations of fans without legal closure.

​Davis faces a single count of murder with a deadly weapon with the intent to promote, further or assist a criminal gang. He has pleaded not guilty and has remained jailed since his arrest in late 2023.

​Prosecutors are not attempting to prove that Davis pulled the trigger. Instead, they allege he was the shot-caller who provided the firearm and directed the hit from the passenger seat of the infamous white Cadillac that pulled alongside Suge Knight’s black BMW at a red light near the Las Vegas Strip. Knight survived the shooting with minor injuries; Shakur died six days later.

​According to grand jury transcripts, prosecutors maintain the shooting was direct retaliation. Hours earlier, Shakur, Knight and their Death Row entourage were seen on casino surveillance footage beating Davis' nephew, Orlando "Baby Lane" Anderson, following a Mike Tyson fight at the MGM Grand. Authorities have long characterized the violence as a tragic extension of a feud between the Mob Piru Bloods, associated with Death Row Records, and the South Side Compton Crips, tied to Davis and aligned with Bad Boy Records.

​The case famously sat cold for decades. It was ultimately revived by Davis himself.

​In recent years, Davis began giving high-profile interviews and published a 2019 tell-all memoir, "Compton Street Legend," openly detailing his presence in the Cadillac and his role as a South Side Compton Crips leader. Prosecutors have bluntly stated that if Davis had not written explicitly about the killing or spoken about it on camera, no one would have likely ever been charged.

​Davis' defense team plans to argue that the state is relying on unreliable witnesses due to the sheer amount of time elapsed since 1996. The defense has also suggested Davis' public confessions were fabricated for entertainment value and financial gain, attempting to capitalize on the enduring mythology surrounding Shakur's death.

​With a reported witness list of more than 200 names — including Knight, who is currently serving a 28-year prison sentence in California for an unrelated fatal hit-and-run — the Las Vegas proceedings are expected to draw massive international media scrutiny.

​Nearly 30 years after the Vegas strip went dark for one of music's brightest stars, the culture is finally going to court.

Chris Brown And Usher’s Stadium Run Gives R&B Its Box-Office Rebuttal

Chris Brown, left, and Usher are shown in artwork for “The R&B Tour.” The co-headlining stadium run has topped $100 million in reported grosses from its first eight stadiums, according to Pollstar. (Courtesy photo)

Usher said R&B belonged in stadiums.

Eight reported stadiums into the co-headlining run, the box office is doing the talking.

Chris Brown and Usher have already topped $100 million in reported grosses on “The R&B Tour,” according to Pollstar, giving the Live Nation-produced run the kind of early number that turns a genre argument into a business story.

Pollstar reported Monday that the tour has grossed $101.9 million from its first eight stadiums, based on 566,043 tickets sold across the first 13 sold-out concerts. The tour opened June 26 at Empower Field at Mile High in Denver and has moved through stadiums in Minneapolis; Detroit; Cleveland; Landover, Maryland; Charlotte, North Carolina; St. Louis; and Nashville, Tennessee.

That is not R&B asking to be taken seriously after years of “R&B is dead” talk.

That is R&B counting the money.

The numbers land a month after Usher framed the tour as something bigger than two stars sharing a stage. Speaking to The Associated Press before the opener, he said R&B has spent years feeding popular music without always getting equal respect from the live business.

“It deserves to be in a stadium,” Usher told AP. “It is not just for theaters. It is not just for arenas. We do this … too. We are major too. R&B is major too.”

He was right.

Pollstar said Brown and Usher averaged $7.8 million per concert, enough to debut at No. 1 on the trade publication’s Global Concert Pulse chart. The tour also ranked No. 2 on LIVE75 by average tickets sold per show among concerts counted in the chart’s eligibility window, behind Bad Bunny.

That makes “The R&B Tour” one of the clearest live-music stories of the summer: R&B, especially the 2000s version built on choreography, club records, slow jams and heavy radio memory, still moves at stadium scale.

That should not surprise anyone who has been watching the receipts.

Usher is coming off a run that included the Super Bowl halftime show, a major Las Vegas residency and the “Past, Present, Future” tour, which Live Nation said sold more than 1.1 million tickets in North America. Brown entered the tour after “Breezy Bowl XX,” which Live Nation said grossed nearly $300 million and drew 2 million fans across stadiums in North America, Europe and the United Kingdom.

Put together, they are not proving that either man has fans.

They are proving how many of those fans are still willing to gather in the same building.

That matters for a genre that has too often been treated like mood music when it was really infrastructure. R&B helped build the sound of pop radio, hip-hop hooks, dance floors, wedding receptions, BET countdowns, car rides, cookouts and the private emotional lives of people who may not call themselves R&B heads until the right record comes on.

The tour is turning that memory into stadium math, despite some heavy baggage.

Brown’s commercial power has never erased the record that follows him. He pleaded guilty in 2009 to felony assault for attacking then-girlfriend Rihanna. AP also reported that he pleaded not guilty in 2025 in London to charges tied to an alleged 2023 nightclub assault.

Usher told AP that Brown’s criticism and legal troubles did not factor into his decision to tour with him.

“Absolutely not,” Usher said. “He’s my brother, and he’s amazing as a performer. That’s who I see. He works hard for his fans, and his fans support him.”

“The R&B Tour” is a win for the genre’s live-business case. It is also a reminder that the live business does not always move on the same clock as the public conversation. Fans buy tickets for songs, memories, dancing, vocals, choreography and the feeling that a certain era of music still belongs to them. Promoters count demand. Venues count nights. The rest of the argument follows the crowd into the parking lot.

None of that makes the number less real.

Pollstar said the tour is scheduled to continue through Dec. 12 in Tampa, Florida, with 51 shows at 26 stadiums in the United States and Canada. Sixteen venues are booked for more than one show. Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium is scheduled for four.

If the early average holds, Pollstar said the tour could finish in the $400 million range, with more than 2 million tickets sold.

That would not just be a big R&B tour.

It would be one of the year’s biggest tours, period.

The genre did not suddenly get bigger.

The rooms finally did.

Too $hort Tests Hip-Hop’s Age Limit With New Lil Jon-Produced Album

Too $hort performs at iThink Financial Amphitheater in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Aug. 13, 2023. The Oakland rap pioneer is releasing “Sir Too $hort Vol. 2: Drink & Smoke,” his 23rd studio album, with Lil Jon producing the project 20 years after “Blow the Whistle.” (Rick Munroe/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)

Too $hort has reached the age where other genres would already call him an elder, hand him a lifetime achievement award and let him keep working.


Hip-hop has not always been that generous.

The Oakland rap pioneer is 60 now, still recording, still performing and still talking like nobody told him he was supposed to disappear. His new album, “Sir Too $hort Vol. 2: Drink & Smoke,” his 23rd studio album, arrives Friday with Lil Jon producing the entire project — a full-circle pairing landing 20 years after “Blow the Whistle” became one of the most durable records in Short Dog’s catalog.

The timing gives the release more weight than another veteran-rapper rollout.

Too $hort is not just promoting an album. He is making a case for rap’s older generation to keep taking up space.

“Who laid the rule down that in hip-hop you gotta stop at 40?” Too $hort told The Associated Press in an interview published Thursday.

That question sits at the center of the story.

For decades, rap treated age differently than jazz, blues, soul or rock. Older singers could tour forever. Blues players could get grayer and more respected. Funk bands could become institutions. But rappers were often expected to either become executives, nostalgia acts or punch lines once they crossed a certain line.

Too $hort never accepted that rule.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Too $hort (@tooshort)

He started moving homemade tapes around the Bay Area as a teenager, built himself into one of Oakland’s defining rap voices and helped make West Coast street rap feel self-contained before the industry fully understood what was happening outside New York. His records could be filthy, funny, blunt, slick and sometimes socially pointed, often in the same stretch of music.

That is part of why his catalog lasted.

“The Ghetto” still carries its quiet weight. “Freaky Tales” remains one of the most infamous long-form talk-your-talk records in rap history. “Blow the Whistle” found another life far beyond radio, turning into an arena chant, a DJ weapon and a song that still cuts through a room before the first verse gets there.

Too $hort told AP he does not know if he could recreate the formula for “Blow the Whistle” if someone handed him the ingredients.

“It had to happen organically,” he said.

He gave Lil Jon credit for that record’s staying power, and the two are back together on “Sir Too $hort Vol. 2: Drink & Smoke.” The album also carries a more personal layer. It features work from Lil Jon’s late son, DJ Young Slade, who died in February after contributing to the project.

Too $hort told AP he was proud to be part of Slade’s legacy.

That detail keeps the project from reading like a simple party-rap victory lap. Yes, the title is “Drink & Smoke.” Yes, Too $hort is still Too $hort. Nobody is coming to this record expecting him to suddenly become careful. But the story around it is about age, grief, work and the kind of continuity hip-hop is only now old enough to fully understand.

He has company.

E-40, Snoop Dogg, Fat Joe, Ice Cube, Busta Rhymes, LL Cool J and others have all helped push rap into its elder-statesman era without fully surrendering to nostalgia. Some tour. Some still record. Some do podcasts, documentaries, brand deals or Vegas-style legacy plays. The important part is that they are still visible enough to challenge the old idea that rap belongs only to the newest voice in the room.

Too $hort and E-40 made that point together during their 2020 Verzuz appearance, which played less like a battle than a Bay Area family reunion. Short told AP he would not want to battle E-40 now, either, calling him his best friend in hip-hop. But he did float a different idea: Too $hort and E-40 against another duo.

That is vintage Too $hort — competitive without pretending the brotherhood is fake.

The larger point is simpler. Hip-hop is old enough now to have 60-year-old rappers who are not curiosities. They are part of the music’s memory bank and, in some cases, still part of its Friday release calendar.

Too $hort has no interest in aging quietly for anyone’s comfort.

The genre that once made middle age look like an exit sign is now learning what older Black music forms already knew: If the voice still works, the stories still matter and the crowd still shows up, nobody has to leave because the calendar said so.

More Than 20 Years After His Death, ODB Gets a Brooklyn Street Sign

Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s widow, Icelene Jones, second from left, holds an “ODB Jones Way” sign with members of the late rapper’s family during a street co-naming ceremony July 25, 2026, in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. The honorary designation at Franklin and Putnam avenues recognizes the Wu-Tang Clan co-founder, born Russell Tyrone Jones. (Ol’ Dirty Bastard Legacy via Instagram)

Ol’ Dirty Bastard spent his career refusing to fit neatly anywhere. Brooklyn has now found a permanent place for his name.

Family members, friends and fans gathered Saturday in Bedford-Stuyvesant as the city unveiled “ODB Jones Way” at the intersection of Franklin and Putnam avenues, honoring the late Wu-Tang Clan co-founder born Russell Tyrone Jones.

The location was not selected simply because it offered an available signpost.


A mural modeled after the cover of ODB’s 1995 solo debut, “Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version,” has watched over the corner for years. His brother Ramsey Jones said their grandmother still lives on the block.

“I am very honored to be here because my grandmother’s house is on this block on Putnam Avenue,” Jones said during the ceremony.

That family connection gives the honor more weight than the usual celebrity street designation. Brooklyn placed ODB’s name where his relatives still have roots and where residents had already created a neighborhood monument to him.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by OL' DIRTY BASTARD (@oldirtybastardlegacy)

The New York City Council formally approved the intersection co-naming in December. The measure became Local Law 48 on Jan. 17, designating “ODB Jones Way” at Franklin and Putnam avenues. It adds an honorary intersection name rather than replacing either street’s legal name.

Council Member Chi Ossé, whose district includes Bedford-Stuyvesant, worked with ODB’s estate and family on the dedication. Ossé previously led the successful effort to designate Nov. 15 — Jones’ birthday — as Ol’ Dirty Bastard Day in New York City.

While presenting that resolution in 2023, Ossé called Jones “a pioneer in the world of music, and one of New York’s immortal sons.”

ODB’s immortality was built on a voice that could sound like a rap verse, a singalong, an argument and a warning — sometimes before the same record ended.

He joined cousins RZA and GZA as an original member of Wu-Tang Clan, whose 1993 debut, “Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers),” rewrote the possibilities for a large rap group. Where other members arrived with dense lyricism, street reportage or martial-arts discipline, ODB seemed governed by an entirely separate set of laws.

His delivery was ragged but deliberate, moving between rapping and singing without respecting the border between them. He could blow apart the structure of a song while becoming the part listeners remembered most.

That presence helped make “Protect Ya Neck,” “Shame on a N---a” and “Da Mystery of Chessboxin’” essential pieces of Wu-Tang’s early sound. Away from the group, “Brooklyn Zoo” and “Shimmy Shimmy Ya” turned his unpredictability into the center of the record rather than something producers needed to contain.

“Return to the 36 Chambers” received a Grammy nomination and established ODB as the first Wu-Tang member to release a solo album after Method Man. He later reached an even wider audience through “Got Your Money,” featuring Kelis, and his appearance on the remix of Mariah Carey’s “Fantasy.”

That Carey collaboration became a model for the rap-and-R&B remix long before record labels turned the combination into a dependable chart formula. ODB did not arrive to smooth out the song. His unpolished energy was the point.

His fame also came with arrests, addiction, incarceration and public episodes that were often treated as entertainment while he was alive. The spectacle sometimes swallowed the music and reduced a complicated person to a collection of outrageous clips.

Jones died Nov. 13, 2004, two days before his 36th birthday.

More than two decades later, the parts of his work once dismissed as disorder sound increasingly influential. Generations of rappers have adopted his cracked melodies, abrupt vocal shifts and willingness to make personality as important as technical precision.

There was no father to his style, as the famous explanation of his name went, and attempts to copy him usually proved why.

New York’s recent honors have moved ODB beyond the caricature. The City Council’s 2023 resolution recognized him as a distinctive MC whose influence outlived him. The new sign places that recognition directly into the Brooklyn landscape that helped create him.

The mural had already made Franklin and Putnam a destination for Wu-Tang fans. ODB’s face, drawn from the welfare-card image used on his debut album, turned the side of a neighborhood building into an unofficial memorial.

Now the city has added its own marker.

Snoop Dogg, Death Row Pictures, Announce August 2027 Release for Life Story

Snoop Dogg will produce his own upcoming biographical film, "Snoop," through his Death Row Pictures banner. The Universal Pictures movie, starring Jonathan Daviss as the Long Beach rapper, is scheduled to arrive in theaters in August 2027. (Courtesy photo)

More than three decades after Death Row Records introduced Snoop Doggy Dogg to the world, Snoop Dogg is helping decide how Hollywood tells the story.

Universal Pictures will release “Snoop,” a biographical film about the Long Beach rapper’s life and career, nationwide on Aug. 6, 2027. Jonathan Daviss, best known as Pope Heyward on Netflix’s “Outer Banks,” will play Snoop in the title role.

Craig Brewer, whose films include “Hustle & Flow” and “Dolemite Is My Name,” will direct from his rewrite of a screenplay originally written by Joe Robert Cole. Cole’s credits include “Black Panther” and “The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story.”

Snoop will produce the film with Imagine Entertainment founder Brian Grazer and Death Row Pictures President Sara Ramaker. Universal said the movie will incorporate music from Snoop’s catalog.

That arrangement gives the project something most music biopics spend years trying to secure: the artist, the songs and the company carrying the history under the same roof.

“Snoop” will be the first film released through Death Row Pictures’ overall deal with NBCUniversal Entertainment. The project turns a label name once associated with Snoop’s turbulent rise into a vehicle for preserving — and potentially reframing — that history.

Snoop acquired the Death Row Records brand in 2022, nearly three decades after releasing his debut album through the label. He has since expanded Death Row into music, merchandise, gaming and visual entertainment rather than attempting to operate it solely as a replica of its 1990s incarnation.

“We’re building Death Row into avenues that didn’t exist,” Snoop told The Associated Press in 2024.

A theatrical film about his life may be the clearest example yet.

The movie was initially announced in 2022 with Allen Hughes attached to direct. Brewer later took over the project and revised Cole’s script. Snoop previously appeared in Brewer’s “Dolemite Is My Name,” the 2019 Eddie Murphy film about comedian and independent filmmaker Rudy Ray Moore.

NBCUniversal introduced Daviss and Snoop together at CinemaCon in Las Vegas in April. The studio said filming was expected to begin in Los Angeles this summer.

Snoop framed the movie as a continuation of the story Universal began telling with its 2015 N.W.A film, “Straight Outta Compton.”

“After my brothers got to tell their story with ‘Straight Outta Compton,’ now it’s my turn,” he told the CinemaCon audience.

Snoop appeared briefly in “Straight Outta Compton,” where LaKeith Stanfield portrayed him as a young rapper entering Dr. Dre’s orbit. “Snoop” will be the first major studio movie centered on his full life rather than treating him as part of someone else’s rise.

The challenge will not be finding enough story.

Born Calvin Broadus Jr., Snoop first reached a national audience in 1992 through Dr. Dre’s “Deep Cover” and “The Chronic.” His voice — laid-back, melodic and immediately recognizable — cut through Dre’s production without needing to compete with it.

His 1993 debut, “Doggystyle,” opened at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and became a defining release of the G-funk era. The Recording Industry Association of America has certified the album quadruple platinum.

At the same time, Snoop was facing a murder charge that threatened to reduce the career to a brief and violent chapter. A Los Angeles jury acquitted Snoop and his bodyguard, McKinley Lee, of murder charges in 1996. Both men also were acquitted of conspiracy to commit assault.

Snoop later described the verdict as a turning point. He told the AP that the experience pushed him to separate himself from people and behavior that could have sent him back to prison or ended his life.

What followed was one of hip-hop’s most unusual reinventions.

Snoop outlasted Death Row’s original collapse, recorded for Master P’s No Limit Records and moved through multiple generations of rap without losing the voice or mannerisms that made him famous. His public life eventually expanded into acting, youth football, cooking television, Olympic coverage, commercials and “The Voice.”

That range makes the eventual shape of “Snoop” an open question.

Universal has not announced the supporting cast or disclosed how much of Snoop’s life the film will cover. The studio also has not said whether the story will remain focused on his Long Beach and Death Row years or follow him through No Limit, his mainstream reinvention and his eventual return as Death Row’s owner.

Snoop’s involvement gives the filmmakers access to his memories and music. It does not yet answer the question that follows every artist-authorized biography: how much of the difficult history will make it to the screen.

The film’s current team suggests that music will not be treated as background decoration. Brewer built “Hustle & Flow” around the process of making a rap record and directed Murphy in “Dolemite Is My Name,” a story about a Black entertainer financing and protecting his own vision when the established industry had little interest in it.

Grazer produced “8 Mile,” while Universal released “Straight Outta Compton.” NBCUniversal Chair Donna Langley has described “Snoop” as a spiritual cousin to the N.W.A film.

This time, however, the artist is not waiting for a studio to decide that his history has value.