Dr. Dre may be feeling good about his new album with Snoop Dogg, Missionary, but he hasn’t been really inspired by any other new Hip Hop album since 2015.
In an interview with Complexpublished on Monday (December 16), the legendary producer was asked: “Do you remember the last person or last album that you heard that you were inspired by?”
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“Well, if you’re talking about new shit, I would say good kid, m.A.A.d city and To Pimp a Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar were the last hip-hop albums that inspired me,” he replied, shouting out K.Dot’s 2012 and 2015 releases, respectively.
Dre himself was an executive producer on both projects.
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One of the big surprises on Missionary was having Snoop, Dre, Eminem and 50 Cent join forces as a four-man unit for the first time on a new song called “Gunz N Smoke,” which pays homage to the late, great Notorious B.I.G.
Despite being longtime friends and collaborators who have worked together in different combinations over the last 25 years, the rap legends have never previously all featured on the same song.
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The heavyweight track comes finds 50, Snoop and Em trading rejuvenated rhymes over groovy production from the Aftermath founder.
The G-Unit boss fires the starting pistol with a fleet-footed verse warning his opps about his firepower, before Tha Doggfather takes the baton and moves through the gears with various flows.
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Biggie’s presence is felt throughout the first half as 50 adopts the Bad Boy MC’s cadence and spits: “Red dot ya, I got ya / B.I.G. time, who shot ya?” — just as Dre drops in a heavy-bottomed bassline that harks back to “Hypnotize.”
Snoop repurposes Big’s “you should too, if you knew” lyric from “Notorious Thugs” in his verse, while a sample of his “gunsmoke!” line from “Dead Wrong” rings throughout.
Carrying the collab across the finish line, Eminem delivers a typically intricate and technical verse that finds him reflecting on his chaotic upbringing, past propensity for violence and maturity into middle-aged mellowness.
Missionary was released on Friday (December 13) and serves as the long-awaited (and amusingly-titled) successor to Snoop Dogg’s 1993 debut Doggystyle, which was also produced entirely by Dr. Dre.
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The 16-track album boasts further appearances from the likes of Method Man, Jelly Roll, Jhené Aiko and BJ The Chicago Kid, as well as rock legends Sting and Tom Petty.
