Is a name change a game changer for celebrities?

Rapper Snoop Dogg is to be known now as Snoop Lion. A new persona is an old trick to revive a fading career and lost fame, says Rebecca Dana

The bestselling rap artist, Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr, best-known as Snoop Dogg, has changed his name again, this time to Snoop Lion, as announced last week at a press conference in a Jamaican restaurant in Manhattan. He has a new identity — as a reggae singer — accompanied by a media push, including a new album and a documentary about his ascent.

This is an explicit attempt to reboot the career of a 40-year-old musician who says, after 20 years in the business, that he has become “Uncle Snoop”.

But will it work? Many stars have attempted to earn a decade of more fame with a mid-career reincarnation, few with great results.

“It’s all about these artists trying to find ways to slightly reinvent themselves and continue to be relevant,” says Dan Schawbel, an author and personal-branding consultant. “The drawback is that people forget what they’re supposed to call you. I know Snoop Dogg as Snoop Dogg. I’m not going to call him anything else.”

Prince faced a similar problem during his eight-year effort to rebrand himself as an unpronounceable glyph he called “the love symbol,” which ended when he reverted to Prince in 2000. There was a short period when pint-size actresses Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen wanted people to acknowledge their separate identities and refer to them as ‘Mary-Kate Olsen’ and ‘Ashley Olsen’. And there are the ongoing efforts of the House of Windsor to get everyone to stop calling Duchess Catherine ‘Kate’.

Others have pursued a name change for reasons more religious than commercial: The actor Mos Def has announced that he has converted to Islam and will be known by the name ‘Yasiin’, as of next year. Ron Artest, enfant terrible of the NBA, became Metta World Peace last year, though it hasn’t yet made him any less terrible. Madonna found Judaism in 2004 and briefly switched to her Hebrew name, Esther. Cat Stevens became Yusuf Islam after his 1977 conversion, and now goes just by Yusuf.

Snoop’s new name seems to be equal parts art and commerce. As he explains it, the transformation occurred on a trip to Jamaica with the record producer Diplo and a group of writers.

“I’ve always said that I was Bob Marley reincarnated,” he said. But it was not until a priest rechristened him that he found his true voice.

“This is a rebirth for me,” the Lion said. “I feel like I’m 19 years old again.” The question is whether it’s more than just a phase.