Snoop Dogg Brings the (House of) Pain to SXSW

SXSW has never been known as a particularly hip-hop-friendly festival, despite its every genre line-up. But as the festival wrapped up another successful year on Saturday night, rappers seemed to headline most of the big bills.

Bone Thugs-n-Harmony capped off the Fader Fort's series of day parties while Mos Def helmed a DJ-heavy roster (Jazzy Jeff, J-Rocc, Cut Chemist) for Red Bull's Big Thre3 Style parking lot party.

But the night's biggest name belonged to Snoop Dogg, who was also arguably the biggest draw at Perez Hilton's now seemingly annual One Night in Austin show (albeit largely because its was Snoop's only appearance while headliners Hole were marking Courtney Love's third gig in two days).

Perez and Snoop both seem antithetical to SXSW's up-and-coming indie ethos, but it's hard to argue against Snoop's performance skills. After so many years on the mic, he knows how to hype a crowd like few others here.

His recent albums may be a little lackluster, but last night he chose not to saddle his gig with too many new songs. Snoop kept to his current single 'I Wanna Rock' and otherwise played an all-hits set which prompted huge arms-in-the-air rap-alongs to crowd favourites like like 'Gin 'n' Juice,' 'Sensual Seduction' and 'Drop It Like Its Hot.'

But perhaps the biggest crowd response came from a fierce and utterly unexpected cover of House of Pain's 'Jump Around' which less surprisingly induced the free alcohol-soused crowd to do as instructed.