Snoop Dogg Took Decades to ‘Allow’ Dr. Dre to Work With Him Again
Over three decades after collaborating on the album Doggystyle, Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre reunited in 2024. The pair teamed up for Snoop’s latest album, Missionary, and have both spoken glowingly about their recent collaboration. Dr. Dre said it took years for Snoop to reach a point where he was ready to work with him again, though.
Snoop Dogg took years before working with Dr. Dre again
Snoop Dogg has said he was “honored” Dr. Dre worked with him on his latest album. Their style of working on this album is different from what they did on Doggystyle, though, and it took Snoop years to be open to it.
“[T]his is a different way of working, to be honest with you,” Dr. Dre told Complex. “I think it took maybe 20 years for Snoop to allow me to work with him this way. And the way we produced the record and the way we did the writing and the music and the whole nine is a different way of us working.”
Snoop explained that on Doggystyle, the two had to learn to work together. On Missionary, he was preparing to work with Dr. Dre at “the top of his game.”
“Not making a beat for me, but producing the whole song, every element of the song from how I say it to what I say to the way I say it, to the coming back in doing ad-libs, to making sure that it sounds right,” he said. “Like your projection of your vocals, listening to every f***ing word. ‘No, you got to come back and say this word like this because your energy wasn’t right.’ And when we listened to it back, I f***ing love it because it challenged me and it put me in a position of where I’ve never been. People work with me and be like, ‘Oh, that s*** was dope.’ This n**** be like, ‘Nope, do it again. Do it again until it’s perfection.’”
Snoop Dogg shared why he likes working with Dr. Dre
Snoop explained that he liked working with Dr. Dre because it allowed him to take a backseat role.
“I can do a lot by myself, but when I’m with you it’s like I can be Robin and let you be Batman,” he said. “You know what I’m saying? I can kick back.”
Dr. Dre agreed that they were at their best when they worked together.
“There’s a certain synergy that comes together when we get on stage or when we get in the studio together,” he said. “It’s just some kind of magic that happens. I realized this when we were working on ‘Nuthin’ but a “G” Thang’ and it was this one part that came in when I realized how much our vocals work together. And I’m like, oh s***, this is like a synergy or something that is really f***ing special. So I just ran with it from there.”
They explained why they wanted to work together again
When asked why they teamed up after three decades, Snoop simply answered, “Why not?” The timing worked out for them. They also wanted to achieve a specific sound.
“We still in our prime,” Snoop said, adding, “We still good at what we do and we just felt like we always fill the void when we make music. We trying to put back the sound that we created under his direction and that’s what we’re doing.”
