Well, he's paid tha cost

Snoop Dogg -- I'm so old I saw him live at a club in London when there was an extra Doggy in there -- is coming to Rock Band as part of a global-MTV-media-mega-deal that includes a weekly late-night variety show called "Dogg After Dark" set in an LA nightclub, an album with Dr Dre and Pharrel titled Malice in Wonderland, and "bringing hip-hop to" the Rock Band download store (fo'shizzle? I guess the Beasties don't count, huh*). No details on which tracks yet. The D-O-double-G indulges in a little Dali-esque third person license in the press release:

When [MTV overlord] Van Toffler and I sat down boss to boss, a global quintuple threat takeover was masterminded. The world of entertainment keeps changing, we felt it was the right time to let Snoop Dogg back on MTV so we could continue to run thangs (sic) with music, movies, DVDs and bring hip-hop to 'Rock Band'.

Word. So, hip-hop on RB. With DJ Hero set for release this year, we might finally be seeing a little musical/racial diversity in the rhythm game space.

*I picked up the remastered reissue of Paul's Boutique tonight. It's 25 years young and phatter than ever. I'm hearing layers and undertones on the CD that'll never make it through an MP3 compression. Sometimes only the best will do.