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It’s well known that the rapper Snoop Dogg is a big Los Angeles Lakers fan. He’s often seen at their games and has talked about his love for the NBA franchise in several television and press interviews. However, it appears that there’s something Snoop loves even more than the Lakers – cold hard cash.

At the MTV Movie Awards in June, the rapper planned to wear an LA Lakers jersey while performing the song California Gurls with Katy Perry, but when it came to the crunch he appeared on stage in a NEFF t-shirt. It later emerged that NEFF, a company he has a 50% stake in, had been promised an order of 10,000 t-shirts by the retailer CCS if he wore them onstage.

This isn’t the first time that Snoop, who is known for hits like Not A Criminal, Gin & Juice II, Beautiful, One Blood and Gangsta Luv, has shown his ruthless business side. He is the proud owner of a multi-million dollar empire and his endorsement of brands has made him one of the richest rappers in the world, according to Forbes. A spokesman from Neff summed up his personality perfectly: “He loves the Lakers but he’s a businessman at the end of the day.”

Calvin Broadus, better known as Snoop Dogg (or, previously, Snoop Doggy Dogg), is a rapper and record producer from California, USA.

Born October 20^th, 1971, Calvin’s parents nicknamed him Snoopy because of his appearance. He began singing and rapping at an early age but was arrested for cocaine smuggling while at high school. Although in an out of prison for a few years, he recorded some solo freestyles which were heard by producer Dr. Dre, who signed him to Death Row Records.

After appearing of Dr. Dre’s solo album The Chronic and the theme song for the 1992 film Deep Cover, Snoop Doog released his debut solo album Doggystyle. Selling over four million copies and producing the hits Gin and Juice and Who Am I (What’s My Name)?, Doggystyle is now considered one of the seminal albums of the 1990s.

His second album, 1996’s Tha Doggfather, was also a huge success. It debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 and produced hits including Snoop’s Upside Ya Head. His third album in 1998, Da Game Is to Be Sold, Not to Be Told, repeated his prior success by hitting the number one spot in the US and producing the hit single Still a G Thang, while his fourth album, No Limit Top Dogg, reached number two on the charts the following year, selling over 1.5 million copies and producing the cult hit Bitch Please, featuring Xzibit and Nate Dogg.

Throughout the next decade, Snoop Dogg produced a further six albums and a number of hit singles, including Snoop Dogg (What’s My Name Pt.2), From tha Chuuuch to da Palace, Beautiful, Drop It Like It’s Hot, Signs, That’s That Shit, I Wanna Fuck You and Gangsta Luv.

His latest album, Ego Trippin’, was released in March 2008 and debuted at number three on the Billboard 200. With the singles Sexual Eruption, Neva Have 2 Worry and Life of Da Party, Ego Trippin’ has sold over 400,000 copies to date.