Summer and hip-hop go together like Jay and Silent Bob, gin and juice, and Nike and sweatshops.

There’s something about warm weather that enhances the rap listening experience.

Maybe it’s the steamy, grind-inducing beats, the smooth-flowing rhymes or just my nostalgia for the days I used to mow the lawn for my parents back in seventh grade, but I rediscovered my inner G-funk this summer.

In the fall of 1993 a slightly canine-looking fellow with a voice smoother than the barrel of a gat released his groundbreaking debut album “Doggystyle.” By summer, every uncool white suburban kid – including me – was dreaming about sippin’ gin and juice and talking about Death Rizzow.

I remember mowing the lawn for my parents that summer and detesting the hourlong job. To make the chore more bearable, I would pop a fuzzy dubbed tape of “Doggystyle” into my Sony Walkman and enter Snoop’s mind.

A world populated with Gz, hustlaz and drive-bys seemed infinitely more appealing than the boring, suburban wasteland of Cottage Grove, Minn., where the kids judged each other by how many pairs of Girbauds they owned.

I used to dream that Snoop and Dr. Dre would roll up to my yard in a lowrider, bass rattling the windows of my tan house, and pick me up to take me away from my grass-cutting duties.

Yes, I was incredibly naive.

My inner G-funk was flowering, and soon I was digging Onyx, Naughty by Nature and Cypress Hill. I was down with the O.P.P. I knew that when B-Real was rapping about cops stealing his crops he wasn’t talking about corn.

Basically, every song on the “Millennium Hip-Hop Party” compilation found its way into my boombox.

But then I discovered the wonder of the alternative movement, something that had already blown up and rocked the nation while I was lost in Compton and the LBC.

Nirvana, Pearl Jam and the Smashing Pumpkins changed my life, and like a snake, I shed my hip-hop skin, emerging in flannel and Converse One Stars. I pushed my inner G-funk to the back of my mind and embraced the alternative ethos.

The misogyny and overt violence of gangsta rap seemed to clash with the introspective, pro-feminist attitudes and lyrics of my newfound musical salvation. And soon enough, I was somehow convinced that rap was bad, maybe even on par with country and William Shatner.

Maybe it was all the white kids in my neighborhood who listened to both Garth Brooks and Tupac, mixing sagged pants and cowboy hats, or maybe not, but rap had lost its appeal.

But around the end of my senior year of high school, a bleach blond kid from Detroit popped onto the hip-hop scene with the hit “My Name Is.” Eminem slowly began to reawaken my interest in hip-hop, but I was still stuck on alternative rock and punk.

It wasn’t until the end of my sophomore year at Iowa State that I realized that alt, indie and electronic music could all coexist with hip-hop.

Phenomenal records by Outkast, Missy Elliot and Eminem have revolutionized rap, revitalizing a genre that struggled under the weight of Puff Daddy’s oversampled songs and DMX’s bark-heavy albums that lacked the organic melodies that populated a lot of early hip-hop.

I picked up the latest albums by Ja Rule, Ludacris and Kurupt this summer, along with NWA’s “Straight Outta Compton.” With rock radio pumping out the latest “hits” by Drowning Pool and Puddle of Mudd, I needed something that wasn’t quite so watered down and overly derivative.

And of course, I couldn’t forget about the man who started it all, Snoop. “Doggystyle” was again pumping through my home stereo, but this time I was actually able to listen to an original 1993-released, factory-sealed CD that I picked up on eBay.

Hip-hop again provided a summer escape from green lawns, minivans and Abercrombie & Fitch (replacing Girbaud), and I fondly remembered daydreaming about rollin’ in my `64.

The summer is fading, but rap is not. Promising new artists such as Fabolous, Little T & One Track Mike and Bubba Sparxx should give everyone a chance to reach deep down inside and discover their own inner G-funk.

Jon Dahlager is arts & entertainment editor of the Daily. He is from Cottage Grove, Minn., the hometown of Stifler of “American Pie” fame. He is a junior in journalism and sociology. And contrary to what some people think, Snow is much better than Vanilla Ice.