Snoop Dogg has his mind on his money and his money on his mind.
The "Gin & Juice" rapper is seeking a cool $2 million from a Philadelphia auto dealer, who, the rapper claims, swiped his image and famous syntax to sell cars.
Snoop, born Calvin Broadus, filed suit Tuesday in federal court in Pennsylvania against Gary Barbera.
The rapper is currently appearing in a series of nationally televised ads alongside Lee Iacocca extolling the virtues of Chrysler cars via the oft-imitated Snoop Speak (i.e., adding the suffix "-izzle" to the first few syllables of any word). But Snoop says Barbera, the proud owner of "Gary Barbera's #1 Dodgeland" near Philly, never had permizzle to do so.
According to Broadus' complaint, available online at the Smoking Gun, Barbera ran an ad in the Philadelphia Daily News on Aug. 22 that stated "Is Bar-Bizzle the Sh-izzle? Boy I Gu-izzle" in an apparent attempt to lure street-savvy kids to his lot.
As Broadus' lawyers point out in the lawsuit, the Long Beach, California, rapper "regularly receives financially lucrative offers to license use of his trademark and personal name, likeness, persona and speech pattern."
They allege the ads have caused "confusion" among Snoop fans who may think the D-O-double-G has endorsed Barbera's dealership in some fashion. A picture of the rapper appears in at least one of the advertisments.
Barbera's rap-happy ads have made him a big target of late among the hip-hop set.
On Aug. 19, he was slapped with a similar lawsuit by 50 Cent for allegedly invoking the "Candy Shop" rapper's name to beef up business.
According to Fiddy's suit, Barbera used the slogan "Just Like 50 Says!" over the backdrop of a Dodge Magnum and a photo of 50 Cent, allegedly without getting the artist's consent.
For his part, 50 Cent is seeking at least $1 million from Barbera.
As for Snoop, his legal team will have plenty of time to devote to the new case now that they don't have to worry about another matter that had been tying up the rapper's docket. A makeup artist who accused Snoop and his posse of sexually assaulting her backstage at a 2003 taping of ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live dropped her lawsuit against the rapper earlier this month.
Broadus had consistently denied he had anything to do with the woman's claims, even taking to CNN's Larry King Live to assert his innocence.