SNOOP DOGG experienced a spiritual and artistic rebirth while making a new album in Jamaica last February.

The veteran rapper told the New York Times that he has abandoned rap as his preferred mode of expression, and wrote more than a dozen songs in a traditional Reggae style.

He also told a documentary film crew about his long and sometimes violent journey from teenage gang member to a middle-aged hip-hop superstar.

He has also shed the name and persona of Snoop Dogg and was rechristened Snoop Lion by Rastafarian priests.

“I have always said I was Bob Marley reincarnated,” Snoop told a crowd of reporters at a news conference at Miss Lily’s, a Caribbean restaurant in New York. He added: “I feel I have always been a Rastafari. I just didn’t have my third eye open, but its wide open right now.”

The news conference was to release the first single from the album “Reincarnation,” which was written and recorded over three weeks in Jamaica.

The article claims there was more than a whiff of midlife crisis in Snoop’s remarks. The rapper said he was tired of being a hip-hop artist, of the young man’s macho bluster inherent in the form, and he felt the songs he had done so far did not reflect the wisdom he had gained from being a 40-year-old father of three.

“There comes a point where you say I done it all, or there isn’t much more to do,” he said. “This was like a rebirth for me.”

“Rap is not a challenge to me,” he said. “I had enough of that. It’s not appealing to me no more. I don’t have no challenges.