3 on the Billboard 200, where it spent eight months in the chart's top 10. In sheer numbers alone, the album was a phenomenon: winning one Grammy Award, spawning three top-40 singles and peaking at No. Dre released his solo debut The Chronic on Dec. Twenty-five years ago, hip-hop changed forever.Īfter a surly split from Compton rap group N.W.A and Ruthless Records, Dr. This story is from the December 9th, 1999 issue of Rolling Stone.Corrections and clarifications: An earlier version of this story listed the incorrect release date. Was there anything in particular you needed to change? I’ve gotten my personal life all the way intact and made sure that it’s straight. How has your life changed in the last nine years? If it’s banging, it’s banging – we don’t care where it’s from. West Coast hardly ever gets played in New York. It was funny for me to get off the airplane here in New York, turn the radio on in the car and hear my song.
At least it’s a much smaller percentage now. There’s a lot of people on the West Coast that still don’t get along with the East Coast, and vice versa. If you’re not sincere with it, you shouldn’t say anything at all. It seems that these days, rappers are fearful of not showing love or allegiance to every rap family. We’re gonna call the album Not These Niggas Again. I talked to Cube, talked to Ren, and we’re going to sit down soon. We have some projects we’re going to be partners on – straight-to-video movies and shit like that. Me and Snoop are always, like, nonstop ideas when we’re together. We probably needed to break away from each other, but in that break, we both realized that we are a lot better together. I think that was created because of my split with Death Row. There’s never been any bad vibes between me and Snoop. He came through and asked me to do the same. I just called him and asked him to get down on my record. She came in and did her thing, and I love her for that. She heard it, sung it – didn’t charge me anything. It’s ironic – I also always wanted to work with Mary J. I’ve always wanted to make a song or do something about him. It’s basically about my brother that got killed. Blige, is a very earnest, from-the-heart song. You get the Moog sound but with a different texture. I really tried to stay away from those high-pitched sounds, but, you know, some songs were just asking for it: “Please mess me with that high-pitched shit.” I kinda replaced the Moog on this one with a Nord Lead – it’s a little red keyboard. You started the West Coast’s love of the mini-Moog. I think I’ve got only one sample on there. I wanted the music to come from the brain. I worked with this composer, Camara Kambon, who won an Emmy for a documentary on Sonny Liston. I really tried to stay away from all those Italiano type of sounds, but there are a lot of strings. I think I’m on with this one.Īm I crazy, or is there a mandolin on there? I got the drums much cleaner on this one, and the way I have everything panning and the sounds coming out is cool.
I wanted people to feel the same vibe they did when they heard the first one, but with some 2001 futuristic shit going on. Well, I definitely wanted a different sound. This album has a lot of clean piano sounds and strings. People were saying that I didn’t have it anymore and that I hadn’t made a good record in years. I’m just responding to the shit I was hearing. There’s only a couple of songs where I’m defensive.
#DR DRE ALBUMS 2001 TRIAL#
Sometimes, though, I’m the one on trial in homey court.”Ī few songs are about re-establishing your reputation. “We’ll have to go to homey court later,” he says, straight-faced, then laughs. There’s a disagreement among his crew, and they’ve come to Dre’s table to seek a solution. Sitting in New York’s Rihga Royal Hotel bar and munching on crab cakes in a corner booth, he is ready to talk about his second solo effort, Dr. Since his first and only solo album, Dre, who is now thirty five, has directed videos, left Death Row Records, produced a bunch of rappers, discovered a bona fide star in Eminem and even mixed a song on the new Nine Inch Nails record.
With N.W.A, he blazed a trail for gangsta rap in the late Eighties before striking out on his own with 1992’s The Chronic, which defined the West Coast sound.