With an estimated fortune of £100 million, Snoop Dogg is one of the richest musicians in the world. His interests span not just music but also property, clothing, film, music production, pet accessories, perfume and ownership of a junior American football league. So why does he keep on getting in trouble with the law? He has just been arrested on weapons and narcotics charges. Police claim that marijuana, cocaine and a firearm were found in his car.

This is Snoop Dogg’s third run-in with police in as many months: earlier this month he was charged with attempting to carry an offensive weapon on to a plane after police found a collapsible baton in his luggage — Snoop Dogg claimed that the baton was a prop for a movie. In October police said they had discovered a gun and cannabis in his car. In April he received a police caution after being arrested for affray at Heathrow in an incident.

Crime has long been a feature of the musician’s life. He grew up in Long Beach, Los Angeles. The middle of three boys, he never knew his father. His mother had cleaning and waitressing jobs. He learnt piano and joined the choir of his baptist church. But then he got into the notorious Crips street gang.

“If you wanted to get money, you got into drugs. You got into drugs, you got into guns. By the time I was 20, I was in and out of jail.”

Of the 28 “homies” he knew on the football team in which he played, “12 are dead, seven are in the penitentiary, and three of them are smoked out (crack addicts).”

Snoop Dogg spent his years in jail rapping. “It was,” he says, “only when other people started telling me I had something different that I really started to believe it.” Andrew “Dr Dre” Young became his producer.

The rapper was born Calvin Broadus: his mother gave him the idea for his stage name because his long face reminded her of the famous cartoon canine. Doggystyle, his debut album, went to the top of the US Billboard charts and made £20 million in its first year, although in the week of its release he went to court accused of the murder of a gang member. He was acquitted in 1996.

As a musician, Snoop Dogg has had huge crossover success, although his latest album, The Blue Carpet Treatment, touted as a return to his gangsta roots, has had mixed reviews. He has been married since 1997 to Shante, the mother of his three children (the couple almost divorced three years ago).

He is anti-violence and says: “Every month or so I take them down to the ’hood. They see what it’s like. I would like everyone to be able to put down their guns,” which makes his brushes with the law that much more puzzling. But regrets, he says, “are just spilt milk”.