From him, this stuff never gets old

Like the large-living criminals who inspired them, gangsta rappers tend to have a short life span. Success isn't the problem, since even the wealthiest ex-thug has a rich well of violent incidents to draw on (and plenty more to invent once those run dry). It's a simple matter of aging: Who wants to hear some guy in his late 30s talk about shooting cops and smoking weed?

As it turns out, plenty of people, at least when the rapper in question is Snoop Dogg, who plied his trade at the TLA on Sunday night. As he points out several times on his latest album, Malice N Wonderland, the man only his mother dares call Calvin Broadus has been spinning stories of street life for 20 years - a wiser strategy than actually doing some of the things he raps about.

By the looks of it, the audience wasn't seeking authenticity so much as pungent stories laced with sharp wit and profane turns of phrase, topped with frequent reminders to indulge in Snoop's drug of choice. He appeared to light up himself in the middle of the set, although only Snoop knew what he was actually smoking.

Practically alone among his peers, Snoop has managed to broaden his horizons without appearing to lose his focus, mixing extralegal attitude with a pronounced romantic streak. In "Gangsta Luv," he merged the two vocabularies, likening a woman to a stolen car he knows how to make run just right.

There was, of course, plenty of straight-up criminality, especially when he reached back to early hits like "Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang" and "Who Am I (What's My Name)?", whose squishy bass lines and slippery rhythms helped define the sound of West Coast hip-hop. Perhaps the most fluid rapper of gangsta rap's first wave, Snoop danced effortlessly around the beat, syllables flying off constantly at unexpected angles.

The hour-long show took a few detours as well, including brief tributes to his late contemporaries Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G., an enthusiastic run though House of Pain's "Jump Around," and even a truncated sing-along to "Sexual Healing." There were dead ends, but Snoop reversed course, spun the wheel and took off before the show could come to a halt.