Snoop Dogg: when an appearance by the hip-hop star was announced at the Manchester International Festival, CityLife has to confess that we wondered whether he’d even make it through passport control, let alone on to a stage near us.

But happily, our fears were quashed when Snoop arrived in London in May and hosted a press conference about his forthcoming new album and appearance at MIF tonight.

Prestigious announcments, yes, but in true Dogg style, he held this pow-wow with his media buddies in the less than salubrious surroundings of a lap dancing bar.

So far, so Snoop. Because if there’s one thing you can guarantee Snoop drags round like a proverbial ball and chain behind him, it’s controversy.

His arrest sheet – for drugs, traffic violations and firearm offences – is well documented and then there’s that famous moment five years ago that got him banned from our shores, when he and his touring buddies vandalised a shop at Heathrow Airport after being refused entry to the first class lounge.

Bad news for his fans, too, who were left clutching tickets for a bunch of UK shows in support of his Ego Trippin’ album that had to be cancelled.

The authorities finally said he was no longer barred from our borders, opening up the possibility of him joining the MIF schedule in 2011.

And Snoop offers up a little time to talk about where he’s at between studio time, where he’s been working on his 11th solo record, Doggumentary.

Released in March this year, it featured the production and vocal skills of Damon Albarn/ Gorillaz, Battlecat, David Guetta, Kanye West and John Legend and totally divided the critics – just as Snoop expected it would.

Rather more surprisingly, though, it stalled outside the UK Top 40 despite selling oodles in America in its release week.

It’s interesting, then, to hear that Snoop saw Doggumentary as a chance to summarise his career, to “make a record that felt good, that felt good to me, that felt good to the environment that I’m in, that hip hop is in right now... to make a record that could really depict my whole career”.

Such a bold attempt to recapitulate one’s output might suggest he was aiming for eclectisim, but while that’s what Snoop got he says that wasn’t the end game.
 
“You don’t really have no direction or no substance when you first start,” he explains.

“It’s just about shooting in the sky trying to find something, and when you hit, you know, you feel like, ‘Ok, I got one’, and you go back and you go, ‘Ok, I got another one, then I got another one’, and then you start taking those songs and trying to put them together until you create a formula that has a concept behind it.

“So, in the beginning it was more about just making songs, because, you know, when you get to the point where I’m at, some would say it’s time to retire.

“So you try to find a groove that feels good to your groove, and once you get it then you stay at it.”

Retire? At 39? He could certainly afford to (as a musician, actor, producer and entrepreneur, he’s netted himself a handsome personal fortune) but it’s hardly the done thing for hip-hop artists to retire.

Most of them are retired – usually by a rival with a loaded gun.

Life post-music isn’t out of the question, though – although he still talks about the collaborations he’d like to add to his already diverse back catalogue (among them, Rage Against The Machine and Nine Inch Nails).

He also recently been approached by his alma mater high school to coach their American football squad. “Then from high school, you know, what’s next?” he smiles.

“NCAA, and then, you know, the big wop wop, the NFL!

“I’m just easing into it, you know. I love the kids, I love coaching, I love giving information, and teaching, and learning, and passing it on, and being a mentor.

“So, football is one of my number one passions, and coaching is definitely up there at the top.”

Thinking about the future and writing a reflective album seems to have opened him up to the possiblity of revisiting some of his career highlights, too.

And that’s exactly the plan for MIF, for which he’ll perform his breakthrough record Doggystyle at the Apollo tonight.

Doggystyle was a critical moment in the whole hip-hop movement. The genre was already developing, but Snoop brought the sound and the realities of Californian gangsta life to it – from casual sex to drug abuse – and has continued to move rap forward by absorbing dance music, pop and R&B.

Getting to perform an album he released 18 years ago in full is a rare treat, but Snoop says getting on stage to play anything is what he lives for.

“I would have to say that playing live is what I enjoy more than anything in my career,” he enthuses.

“You know, the recording part of it is very fun, and different, but it’s more work.

“The performing side is fun, because it’s like you’ve reached the pinnacle, that’s when the music is already understood by the people, and the expectations is for them to sing along with you.

“That’s why I think Twitter is like the number one key in music right now. You know, having that relationship with your fans where it’s not based on your record label, it’s based on you.

“When you tweetin’ and all that, that’s not about what label you on, it’s about you dealing with your fans directly.

“So whether you have a successful album, or a label that supports you or backs you, you have a relationship with the people who make you who you are, and to me, that’s way more important. It’s trust. I don’t trust that (the music industry), but I trust you, and if I have a relationship with you and you telling me you putting a record out and it’s gonna be good, I’m gonna buy it because I trust you.”

Apollo, tonight, SOLD OUT.

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