Ice Cube has revealed that he wanted Dr. Dre to produce his debut solo album AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted but Eazy-E stopped it from happening.
Cube went solo after leaving N.W.A. under acrimonious circumstances in 1989 but still wanted Dre behind the boards for his first record.
Speaking to Complex’s Idea Generation, the rapper and actor said: “I still tried to be friends with the guys who had nothing to do with the business. Me and Eazy was shaky, and I didn’t care about Jerry Heller at all, so it wasn’t no love lost there.
“But I tried to keep it together with Dre. I even wanted Dre to produce my solo record, and we was talking about it, but Eazy and Jerry vetoed it.”
Instead of Dre, AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted was produced by Public Enemy‘s Bomb Squad and Cube would go on to diss Dre on infamous track “No Vaseline” in 1991.
The two N.W.A. co-founders would later work again in 1994 on “Natural Born Killaz” which was originally planned for a Dre and Cube joint album titled Heltah Skeltah that was ultimately scrapped.
Cube is currently gearing up to release Man Down, his first album since 2018.
He recently revealed that the album will be dropping before the end of the month and according to an Apple Music tracklist, will be comprised of 19 tracks and feature a number of huge guest appearances.
As well as Killer Mike and Busta Rhymes who featured on new single “Ego Maniacs”, Cube has recruited an assortment of West Coast legends for the project.
The likes of Snoop Dogg, Xzibit, Kurupt, B-Real, E-40 and Too $hort are all down for guest appearances across the album as is October London.
Dre is also in album rollout mode as he has produced the entirety of Snoop Dogg’s Missionary, which will be dropping in December.
Dre will also be contributing vocals to the album as well as the likes of Eminem, 50 Cent, Method Man and Jhené Aiko.
Missionary also features some more unorthodox collaborators such as rock legend Sting and country superstar Jelly Roll while one track is said to heavily sample the late Tom Petty.
Special shout out to Sir Jinx for making Amerikkaz Most Wanted happen
No way to know how it would have been with Dre but The Bomb Squad definitely did their thing on the production side.
It was pretty much co-produced by Sir Jinx, who claims only Eric Sadler from the bomb squad contributed to it and not the other members like shocklee brothers, chuck d etc
We heard this story a thousand times. Cube left the group. Dre and Yella signed to Ruthless. Then he say he wanted to do a joint album with Ren. Eazy deceased man, let him rest in peace. Instead of using him for promotion to sell records. You and Dre wouldn’t have had a career without him.
Stay in a child’s place. Cube wrote their songs. Smdh
Stay in a hoe place.
Stay in a hoe place
Im glad he didn’t to be honest, what made Amerikkka’s Most Wanted a classic to this day is that sonically it’s an east coast producers interpolation of how a west coast album should sound. Every track isn’t designed to “ride out” to …it still got that NY thump where its needed.
More hyped for Cube than Snoop tbh.