It was just an alias for reggae, like Snoopzilla is for funk music and DJ Snoopadelic for his DJ sets
"I want to bury Snoop Dogg and become Snoop Lion,” he said at a press conference.
Also in the AMA he did around the time he said it was an official name change but I'm not gonna dig through that shit.
Saying it was just for the reggae album was his fallback when the re-branding failed miserably.