The first time I brush shoulders with the rapperSnoop Dogg, we are deep in the cavernous recesses of a dimly-lit "private gentleman's club" in central London, surrounded by scantily clad females. It is here that Snoop Dogg has chosen to launchDoggumentary, his 11th studio album. As yet the only sign that he is in the building is the cloud of bittersweet-smelling smoke billowing through the swing door of the VIP lounge. This, after all, is the man who once released a track detailing his tendency to "Smoke Weed Everyday".

He is running late. Assorted members of the press have already been shepherded down the stairs by a comely platinum blonde sporting a zip-up Lycra costume that looks like something Katie Price might wear to ride a bobsleigh. On a small stage, a pole dancer is performing with impressive athleticism amid the flock wallpaper and lacquered black woodwork.

When Snoop eventually emerges, trailed by bodyguards the size of skyscrapers and a giggling bevy of silicone-enhanced pole-dancers, his eyes are shielded by dark glasses and he is wearing a turquoise blue tracksuit crafted from the finest man-made fibres. It is lucky, given the amount of flammable nylon in this small space, that he no longer seems to be smoking. He takes a seat on a purple and gold throne, smiles a languid smile, glances appreciatively at the gathered crowd and says: "I love what I do."

And indeed, why wouldn't he? The 39-year-old (born Calvin Broadus) was once a Crips gang member who served six months in jail for possession of cocaine shortly after finishing high school in California. While many of his contemporaries ended up dead or serving life sentences, Snoop took a different direction. In 1993 he stormed the charts with his debut album,Doggystyle, which sold more than 4m copies and proved to be a seminal moment in the evolution of gangsta rap. Now, after stints as a drug-dealer, a pimp and a director of pornographic movies, he's worth upwards of £100m and has defiantly embraced the mainstream, lending his name to everything from pet food to mobile phone games to the Norton antivirus computer program (slogan: "Hack is Wack"). Along the way he has found the time to appear in his own reality TV show and several films, including a memorable cameo as the police informant Huggy Bear in the 2004 movie remake ofStarsky and Hutch.

He counts David Beckham among his closest friends. Prince Harry reportedly asked him to perform at Prince William's stag do (Snoop declined, claiming he had a prior commitment to go to a barbecue). Of course he looks smug.

When we meet properly, two days after the album launch, the relaxed semi-smirk of a man who is happy with his lot is still firmly in place. Snoop is about to film a segment for a documentary on the history of hip-hop, so instead of boob jobs and nylon body-suits, we are surrounded by cotton-wool buds and bottles of mineral water in an empty television studio dressing room. The tracksuit has gone, replaced by an oversized baseball jacket, and his trademark cornrow hair is neatly tied back in pigtails that somehow manage to look edgy. He stoops as he walks through the door, bending his 6ft 4in frame down to give me a hug. I am so taken aback by this spontaneous show of affection that I clink my teeth against his plastic hair bobble. He doesn't seem to notice.

He positions himself in a chair next to mine but at a 90 degree angle so that instead of looking at me as he talks, he stares intently into a vast mirror that covers one wall of the room. He loves the UK, he says almost as soon as he sits down. This, in spite of the fact that he was banned from Britain in 2006 after his entourage caused a fracas at Heathrow airport in which seven policemen were wounded. The ban has only recently been lifted, and Snoopplayed Glastonbury to near-universal acclaim last year. "I wanna thank the people who fought to bring me back into this beautiful country," he says, his voice dripping like treacle from a spoon as he gazes at his reflection. "I feel the emotion, the spirit, the power, it's so different from any other place I've ever been. The only word I can explain it with is…" – he pauses for dramatic effect – "exuberance… You see the love, from the babies to the owner to the maid, there's no in between when it comes to this love over here, they're feelin' Snoop Dogg, you know what I'm sayin'?" He nods his head, as if agreeing with himself.

I think I do know what he's saying but a conversation with Snoop is always going to be an exercise in cultural semaphore. He speaks like he raps, in a stream of lyrical consciousness that is sometimes brilliant, sometimes baffling but which almost always contains a present participle with a dropped "g".

He discovered his talent for rap at the age of 15 when he took part in hip hop battles in high school. "I could beat em all," he says. "And this showed me: man, this is something I need to be doing because it's so easy for me and these guys were staying up all night writing songs and I'm just saying whatever's on my mind, right there on the spot and it's better than what they're doing so maybe it's my calling to do this."

Did he like being the centre of attention? "I was like the class clown in school so I guess I would say I did like the attention. In church I did a lot of plays, my mother made me play characters, do a lot of drama and acting, trying to become someone else. So it helped me create who I am, to create Snoop Dogg."

In fact, it was his mother Beverly who first started calling her son by his nickname because of his resemblance to the cartoon character Snoopy. Later on he adopted it as his rap persona, claiming that he was Snoopy's forgotten canine brother: a black dog not allowed in Charlie Brown's house and left to fend for himself on the streets.

In reality, he was the second of three sons, raised by his mother and stepfather, Calvin, in Long Beach, California. His father, Vernall, was a Vietnam veteran and mail carrier who was absent for much of Snoop's childhood. As a teenager, Snoop fell in with the Crips, one of the largest and most violent gangs in America. Interestingly, given that he never knew his father, he compares the experience to being part of a family (albeit a murderous, very scary family). "What people don't understand is joining a gang ain't bad, it's cool, it's fine," he says nonchalantly. "When you in the hood, joining a gang it's cool because all your friends are in the gang, all your family's in the gang. We're not just killing people every night, we're just hanging out, having a good time and we're in the gang… So it's like, it's more a family than anything, and it's easier to become family than it is to get a job."

He ended up in jail, serving six months at the Wayside County jail for cocaine possession. Inside, he entertained other inmates with his rapping, and on his release was signed up by the fledgling Death Row Records to record his first album under the mentorship of NWA's Dr Dre. The result –Doggystyle – was to change the sound of hip-hop for ever. The James Brown breakbeat samples that had for so long dominated the scene were replaced with funk hooks and snippets recorded by real musicians. Dr Dre's insistence on live instrumentation, the old-school influences of Isaac Hayes, George Clinton and Curtis Mayfield, and a slower, lower-key rapping style opened up a whole new hip-hop idiom termed G-funk.

The success ofDoggystyle cemented Snoop's reputation and he soon had enough money to rent his own apartment and a bodyguard, McKinley Lee. In 1993 Lee and Snoop were allegedly "disrespected" by a rival gang member. A row ensued, shots were fired and two bullets hit the man, who collapsed and died in an alleyway. During the murder trial, Snoop and Lee argued they had acted in self-defence and were acquitted. Controversy trailed him throughout the 90s – there were police cautions for drug possession and affray. In 1996 his friend and label-mate Tupac Shakur was gunned down.

Does Snoop have any regrets about his violent past? "Mm-mm," Snoop says, shaking his head. "Not at all. Not a ting."

Certainly his record sales didn't suffer, and he was catapulted into the full-throttle, multi-million dollar gangsta lifestyle. He became famous for his vocal style – while other hip-hop stars were shouting, Snoop was whispering with intent – and for his laidback, easy-come-easy-go persona that ensured his music had huge crossover appeal. He married Shante, his high school sweetheart, in 1997 and although the couple almost divorced in 2003 amid constant rumours of his infidelity, they now have three children – two teenage boys, Cordell and Corde, and an 11-year-old daughter, Cori.

When I ask Snoop about his wife, his shoulders relax. "I fell in love with her and I can't fall out of love with her," he says. "We're meant to be. That's just what it is, despite the ups and downs and the trials and tribulations and the temptations that I've been through in the industry and life in general. She's the strongest person in my life because she's my backbone. She's my love, the mother of my kids, the love of my life, my heart, my soul. We made for each other. No matter how old she gets, how many changes she goes through physically, I'm connected with her spiritually so that's where our connection lies."

But it is hard to square this declaration of love with some of Snoop's misogynist lyrics. To take a random example from "Can U Control Yo Hoe" (from his 2004 albumR&G: The Masterpiece): "You got to put that bitch in her place / Even if it's slapping her in the face." In 2007 Oprah Winfrey denounced him as the prime offender in perpetuating negative portrayals of women in hip-hop. And yet at the live gig I go to two days before our interview, he delivers a storming set that has the many women in the crowd singing along with the rest of them. They all seem so hypnotised by the rhythm of his words, by the showmanship of the man himself, that either they do not care about the content of what he is saying or they have simply forgotten to listen. Because, in many ways, Snoop's career has followed the arc of hip-hop itself: once it was the angry, polemic of the ghetto outsider; now you can download Public Enemy as your mobile phone ringtone, and boys call girls "hoes" in the school playground.

How does Snoop feel about some of his more profoundly sexist lyrics? "I love 'em," he says, without hesitation. "I was a bad motherfucker, I love it. I love the shit that I sing, the things that I did, and I love performing those records on stage and seeing the people singing with me because that's the time of my life, that's what I felt."

Was he angry at women? "No, I wasn't angry, I was having fun. See, what people don't understand is we were brainwashed not to know. So, my whole life I was taught that it was OK to call a woman a bitch once you get in a position to have power. Once you became a pimp or a player that was the appropriate language to call a woman and she respected that. But as I became a man, and seeing that wasn't the right way, I put a U-turn in and I changed direction. When you don't know, you don't know. When you know, you supposed to make a change and that's what I did."

It is true thatDoggumentary is not remotely as offensive as some of his previous albums but he still uses the terms "bitch" and "hoe" in his songs. Aren't they derogatory terms for women? "No, because all bitches ain't women. Some of these men are bitches too. It's a figure of speech, it has no meaning connected to it… Terminology-wise, in the rap world, that's just a cool slick word that sounds appropriate with our records.

"That's what we were brainwashed to know, we were taught that. Our forefathers, the ones who wrote rap before us, they said it. So when we got it, we said it. Look at all the comedians in the 70s and 80s: Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Redd Foxx, listen to the things they did."

But the world has moved on since then hasn't it? "Yeah," he concedes, "because women are in a position now to voice their opinion… women are getting empowered. The more power they get, the more voice they get to shift certain things around. Now I have a daughter, I understand. When I didn't have a daughter, I didn't understand. I was speaking from the mind of a young adolescent."

He insists that fatherhood has changed him for the better. His children are allowed to listen to his music at home – "It's like the gospel in my house," he jokes – and Snoop coaches his sons' American football team. The secret to being a good coach, he says, is "being a friend to the kids, being able to be in their heads outside of the game. Even after the footballing season's over, I like being their friend. So it's not just about winning and losing in the football field; it's about winning and losing in life."

Snoop and his sons also love soccer: does he ever ask David Beckham for tips? "No, you know, me and Becks's relationship ain't about tips, it's about bein' friends man. I love what he do, he love what I do and it's just a common bond."

How important has it been becoming a parent, given that his own father was barely present during his childhood? "Just to break the chain was the key, to be able to say 'OK, just because I didn't have my father in my life doesn't mean I'm not going to be in my kids' life. I'm going to try my best to be there for them, and if I can't, it's not because I didn't try, it's because of circumstances. I try to be all I can be for them."

Does he think he's doing a good job? "Think I'm doing all right," he says, with uncharacteristic quietness. "You know, I could do better."

But, career-wise, he is happy with how things are going – "I'm the Snooperman!" he says, without irony. He turns 40 in October (280 in Dogg years!), a prospect that makes him nervous: "Yeah. And I don't get nervous about too much."

Perhaps it is for this reason thatDoggumentary is more reflective and nostalgic, sampling Luther Vandross and the Supremes and including collaborations with John Legend, Kanye West and Gorillaz. "Most definitely. That's what theDoggumentary's about. It's like documenting my life and the things that I been through… I suppose I had nothing to live for back then. I didn't have kids. It was just me! Once I began to have kids and more responsibilities, then I began to live for them. They gave me more of a reason to be here, more of a reason to make music, to tap into my craft, and I love what I do."

And maybe the key to his success (apart from his willingness to collaborate with almost anything that moves) is that he sees his music as being authentic to a particular period of time, a particular life experience. Despite his cartoonish persona and his love of bling and pole-dancers, there is an essential core of real belief at the heart of his music. You might not like what he says, but you can at least admire the way he says it.

Alex Poots, the director of theManchester International Festival which Snoop will headline next month, puts it this way: "He doesn't take himself seriously but he takes what he does seriously. He's got such charisma, such chutzpah that when he's on stage, all you look at is him. He's just a brilliant performer."

Snoop Dogg has always been a mass of contradictions: the credible rapper who went commercial; the stoner with an admirable work ethic; the one-time pimp who married his high school sweetheart, and the former murder suspect who now coaches his son's youth team. He seems to delight in confounding expectations. When the woman from his record label tells me he has a soft spot for Benny Hill, I'm barely even surprised.

"I love Benny Hill," Snoop enthuses when I bring it up. "He one of my favourites of aaall time. Like, the way Benny did it, he was just amazing. Just seeing how he put songs together and comedy and the timing and the sketches. He was way ahead of his time."

Does he, I wonder, see a bit of himself in Benny Hill? Snoop leans back in his chair, legs spread apart. He turns to look at me through slanted eyes, his face sharp, eyebrows minutely raised. "I would like to play Benny Hill in the Benny Hill movie," he says, enunciating every vowel like he's eating molasses. "I'll even paint my face white." He laughs, delighted at the thought. Knowing Snoop Dogg and his capacity for self-transformation, the idea is probably not as far-fetched as it sounds.

Snoop Dogg will perform Doggystyle in full, including live appearances from artists featured on the album including Daz Dillinger and Warren G, at the Manchester International Festival on 15 July

• Snoop Dogg
• The Observer
• Rap
• Hip-hop
• Manchester international festival
• features