Only Jah knows Snoop Lion’s heart, but cynics will find him to be as serious about Rastafari as Metta World Peace is about nonviolence. The Rasta Millennium Council - a group that sees Snoop as no better than a college kid who wears a red-green-and-gold rasta cap while playing hackey sack and listening to “ Legend” - is outraged. Bunny Wailer (of Bob Marley’s backing band, the Wailers) has accused him of opportunism and cultural appropriation. He was so moved by a trip to Jamaica that he converted to Rastafarianism. Snoop Lion’s transformation is, according to him, a religion-inspired switch. Football player Chad Johnson’s switch to Chad Ochocinco pretty much defines icky, branding-related name change. Diddy then Diddy, making his name ever-shorter and catchier in his quest to stay relevant. Then there are the public figures who change their names in financially motivated bids to freshen their brands. Often, established celebrities change names for religious reasons: Think Yasiin Bey (Mos Def), Muhammad Ali, Kareem Abdul-Jabaar, Yusuf Islam or when Madonna decided she wanted to be known as Esther. Sometimes stage names just need streamlining, as when Nasty Nas became just Nas, or Snoop himself went from Snoop Doggy Dogg to Snoop Dogg. was once Tip, but, to avoid confusion with Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest, he lopped off the “p.” Rapper 2 Chainz once had a rap moniker that is unprintable in this newspaper and changed it because it’s tough to become a household name with a name that can’t be printed in a newspaper. to avoid a copyright lawsuit Common Sense became just Common for similar reasons. Biggie Smalls adopted the clunkier Notorious B.I.G. Sometimes the reasons are practical: dropping “Young” and “Lil” when one turns 21, for instance. But when rappers - or any celebrity, really - make a mid-career name change, it usually comes from a less-pure place.

MCs take their names from such inspirations as physical features, childhood nicknames and hobbies. They speak to artistic transformation and reinvention, while often also connecting an artist to his or her roots. He abandons commercial rap for reggae, and ditches his old name for a new one - Snoop Lion. Now, with the release of his 12th studio album, “ Reincarnated,” Snoop is messing with perfection. It was immediately apparent how Calvin Broadus got his rap name and that he couldn’t have picked anything better than Snoop Doggy Dogg. The dog and the Dogg share the same long features and slim build. In the music video for Snoop Doggy Dogg’s 1993 debut single, the magic of special effects allowed us to watch the Long Beach, Calif., rapper morph into a Doberman pinscher.

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