Snoop Dogg, in association with VoiceSkins.com, announces the launch of Snoop's GPS voice. As one of the best known and most recognizable voices in pop culture, Snoop Dogg's VoiceSkin is now available for download by users of TomTom GPS navigation systems.

Bringing a whole new hip-hop swagger to TomTom GPS, the VoiceSkin contains ‘Snoop Speak' such as: "Take tha third left, and while you're at it, put in some of that Snoop Dogg!" "Turn around when possible and keep it ‘G', ya d-i-g?" He also smoothes the way for TomTom drivers with Snoop-style guidance, such as, "Keep left ahead, and you'll be bonafide".

Nick Adler, Brand Manager for Snoop's Stampede Management, said, "Celebrity voices for GPS are a hot new content category. Snoop is the first real megastar to lend his voice to GPS navigation. As Snoop is a trendsetter, he just had to have his voice tell us all where to go!"

Along with the VoiceSkin, Snoop Dogg fans can also expect extra bonus material including a special ‘Points of Interest' file, containing the locations of places of special significance to Snoop and his favourite Los Angeles haunts. Additional TomTom device sounds (including start up, shut down and speed camera warnings) are also available for download, all voiced by Snoop himself.

"Snoop Dogg has one of the most distinctive and recognisable voices in music," said Chris Hilton, CEO of Locutio Voice Technologies, the company behind VoiceSkins.com. "We are thrilled to have Snoop's VoiceSkin available for use on devices made by TomTom, the world's leading navigation solutions provider. The Snoop Dogg TomTom celebrity voice is the perfect in-car soundtrack."

LA in October is, well, like UK in high summer and how the Antarctic will be in 50 years (but without the botox). Perfect bleached sidewalks, blue skies and damn hot, in the 80s or so.! I recall how last year, when we were over to record the real Homer Simpson at Fox sound studios it rained and temperatures hit the low 60s. To LA people, that is cold, whilst we were almost at the point of taking off our t-shirts (isn’t this what all Brits want to do when they go abroad?). We’d just got over the jet lag when Nick, our contact at Stampede, took us out for a power lunch at Café Primo on Sunset Boulevard. Sweaty, semi-beautiful people striding in from the ultra gym next door vying with surly waiting staff; you can’t get more LA than this (unless you consider the bluey white dentures I bought from a man in North Hollywood; only kidding, I’m staying with my true Brit tombstones).

Snoop wrote the additional stuff for the TomTom celebrity voices GPS script himself. He pulled together his Snoopisms and overlaid them perfectly onto our script. Reading it, we knew we had a hit! But we also expected him to improvise a little – after all he’s well known for this.

Grant and I recorded Snoop at Conway, where Guns n Roses made ‘Use Your Illusion I & II’, and U2 recorded ‘Rattle and Hum’ (gold discs up on the wall always impress an ex-muso like me). A really lovely place set back in quiet residential street; inside there is a walled garden with loads of trees nestled between the 3 studio complexes. I can see why you’d want to record your difficult second album(s) here. Our ops director, Colin, didn’t make it to the session, sadly. Food poisoning. Raw fish never gives me any problems. Still, there has to be some payback for having lunch earlier in the day in a Malibu café overlooking glorious pacific waves.

GPS systems are great devices to give as Christmas and birthday presents. They help guide you to where you need to go, and they make re-routing traffic a breeze but consumers are fed up with GPS systems. Why, you may ask? Well, the voices on the GPS systems are usually the most boring voices on the planet, whether it be a robotic male or female voice but TomTom has does something great to help cure our boredom by adding “VoiceSkins” to the GPS systems.

So far, TomTom has captured the voices of two famous celebrities, Rap Star Snoop Dogg, and family man, Homer Simpson. By adding these VoiceSkins, the boring automated voices on your device can be replaced by the exciting and funny voices of your favorite celebs. Snoop Dogg, while recording the VoiceSkin commented, saying:

“Really it was because I’d be riding in my car and I’d be hearing that boring ass lady doing it all the time. …She’d always be turning my music down, going, “Turn left, go right, straight ahead.’ We gotta add some flavor to that.”

Although VoiceSkins are great, consumers aften forget to question how they were created. Well, here at ZiggyTek, we found it of utmost importance to explain the process to you. First, Locutio, the geniuses behind the VoiceSkins communicate with TomTom to see if they would be willing to accept a new voiceover. Once they get that settled, they would contact the seperate celebrities to come into their recording studio and record some demo sounds for them. In Snoop Dogg’s case, he approached Locutio to make his own recording. After Locutio employees analyze the demo recordings, they try and incorporate the sounds into a test run of a standard GPS system to see how well it would work and what parts to add it into to. Once they get that settled, they call back the celebrity to come and finalize the sounds, which they will build a whole new GPS structure out of, building the system from the ground up. Once they build up the voice and finalize it, they negotiate a plan to implement it into software for all TomTom systems. VoiceSkins are great for making your trip a bit more interesting, especially if you drive on roads with funny names.