On this day, Dec. 19, in hip-hop history...

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2000: Snoop Dogg dropped his fifth studio album Tha Last Meal on Dec. 19, 2000.
By the turn of the century, the smooth-talking Snoop was an easily recognizable voice of the West. Tha Last Meal would be Snoop's last album on Master P's No Limit Records but his first under his own label, the newly-minted Doggystyle Records.

Executive production on the LP was split between two of Snoop's mentors, Dr. Dre and Master P, with additional production from Timbaland, Scott Storch and Soopafly. Singles from the 19-track G'ed up masterpiece include "Snoop Dogg (What's My Name Pt. 2)," "Lay Low" featuring one of Snoop's frequent partners in rhyme Nate Dogg, "Loosen Control" and "Hennesey n Buddah" featuring Kokane.

In the age of the budding Internet, a begrudgingly spiteful Suge Knight leaked the songs from the album two weeks early on Dec. 1. Suge was angry over Snoop leaving Death Row Records and made MP3 versions of songs from the album downloadable from the Death Row website as revenge. But West Coast fans who had been following Snoop Doggy Dogg since the beginning and were aware of the beef still spent the money to support the album.

Tha Last Meal debuted at No. 9 on the US Billboard 200, selling over 397,000 in the first week. It went platinum by February 2001 and to date, is ceritified double platinum in sales.

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