When I was up in San Francisco visiting family my friends there thoughtfully gifted me with a snack for my long Amtrak journey back to LA, Snoop Dogg’s O.G. Bar-B-Que Cheddar Cheese Puffs. Like other celebrity driven food products this cheese puff proposes a kind of synesthesia by asking us, “what would gangster rap taste like?”

The answer is a kind of compromise in the great American barbecue sauce war between the tangy and sweet camps, though Snoop clearly comes down more on the sweet side. But this is being charitable because this thing tastes stale and lifeless, like a slightly sugary Styrofoam packing peanut. In the end it’s probably not worth the 380 calorie hit, though on a slow Amtrak journey even the most humdrum food can taste like the ambrosia of the rap gods.

Naturally, this cheese puff comes with a “story,” a rise-and-grind message by way of a quote from Snoop himself, “Make every opportunity count . . . stay focused, be relentless and do whatever it takes to master your craft.” Relentless cheese puffs!

Like so many things in our neo-liberal life this “food” acts more as a vehicle for capital accumulation and “branding” than nourishment. I always come back to the evergreen Onion gag about Nike supposedly giving up on making shoes and just doing ads.

Maybe Snoop has strayed too far from his musical roots, what with his cavorting with Martha Stewart, chilling with Rick Caruso and clowning around at the Olympics. Perhaps, like the future shoe-free Nike company, he should swear off the music (if he hasn’t already?) and ascend to the realm of pure signs. Whereas we may have previously imagined Snoop rapping through a cloud of pot smoke, he’s now, apparently, more likely to disappear in a puff of powdered cheese flavoring down at the knock-off Cheeto factory.