By the time Snoop Dogg's new album, Tha Last Meal, arrives in stores next month, the rapper could already be at work on a new film project from director John Singleton.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the 28-year-old Snoop (real name Calvin Broadus) is weighing an offer to join the cast of "Baby Boy," which includes singer/actor Tyrese Gibson, Ving Rhames, Taraji Henson and Omar Gooding.

Publicists for Columbia Pictures (which is handling "Baby Boy") as well as the rapper's Hollywood reps at the William Morris Agency had yet to return calls about the casting as of press time.

A spokesperson for Priority Records, the label that will issue Snoop's No Limit LP Tha Last Meal on December 15, said that he had heard the rapper might make a cameo in the flick, but he was unaware if Broadus had signed on to appear in the movie.

Tyrese is set to star in "Baby Boy" as Jody, a man who is pulled between relationships with Yvette (Henson), the mother of his young son, and a newer romantic interest. If he accepts the part, Snoop will portray a character named Rodney, one of Yvette's ex-boyfriends.

While doing the promotional rounds for his most recent film, "Shaft," earlier this year, Singleton talked about plans for "Baby Boy," which he described as a follow-up of sorts to his first film, 1991's "Boyz N the Hood."

As with the pending "Baby Boy," Singleton wrote and directed "Boyz N the Hood." He also garnered a pair of Academy Awards for the 1991 movie, which featured the cinematic debut of rapper Ice Cube. Cuba Gooding Jr — the older brother of Omar — also starred in "Boyz N the Hood," which detailed the struggles of three friends growing up in urban Los Angeles.

Columbia Pictures is scheduled to release "Baby Boy" on June 29, 2001.

Snoop has completed work on another motion picture, "Bones," which is due out in October 2001. Directed by Ernest R. Dickerson, the movie will feature the first big-screen starring turn by the rapper, who plays a revenge-minded ghost who returns from the dead after 20 years.