Jay-Z talks about writing Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg’s collaboration “Still D.R.E.”.
Last year during an interview with The Breakfast Club, Snoop Dogg revealed that Jay-Z wrote the verses for his & Dr. Dre classic track “Still D.R.E.” He claimed that Hov who credited on the track with his real name Shawn Carter, flow into Dre’s LA studio and wrote the whole song in under an hour. “He wrote Dre’s sh*t and my shit and it was flawless,” said Snoop Dogg. “It was ‘Still D.R.E.’ and it was Jay-Z and he wrote the whole f**king song. Jay-Z is a great writer, to begin with for himself, so imagine him striking it for someone he truly loves and appreciates. He loves Dr. Dre and that’s what his pen showed you, that I can’t write for you if I don’t love you.”
“Still Dre” was released as the lead single from Dre’s multi-platinum second studio album, 2001, on November 2, 1999. The single’s success helped the album to multi-platinum status, signaling Dre’s return to the forefront of hip-hop. Still, D.R.E. made his debut on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 93. It was more successful in the United Kingdom, where it hit number one on the R&B charts.
“Still DRE” debuted and peaked at number 93 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1999 before re-entering and peaking at number 23 in 2022 following the iconic NFL Super Bowl Halftime show.
During his Breakfast Club interview, Snoop talked about how Dre flew Jay-Z out and he wrote ALL of “Still Dre” in under a hour pic.twitter.com/9TKJHXlbq1
— GlockTopickz (@Glock_Topickz) July 29, 2020
“At first, he wrote about diamonds and Bentleys,” Dre told Blaze magazine in 1999 about JAY-Z being ghostwriter for the song. “So I told Jay to write some other sh-t. Jigga sat for 20 minutes and came back with some hard-a-s, around-the-way L.A. sh-t.”
Now, in an appearance on the season premiere of HBO’s show “The Shop“, Jay-Z recalls the same thing. “When you write for other people, I don’t know if you do it anymore, but when you used to do it, like “Still D.R.E.”, one of the greatest written song, but you write it actually how Dre would speak, how do you channel, cause you have to be in that character for write for them,” asks Maverick Carter.
Also Checkout: Jay-Z Remembers Boycotting The Grammys for DMX.
“On that reference track, I’m doing Snoop and Dre, both of them,” says HOV.” You gotta have somewhat of reverence for them, the music they were making, The Chronic, and all of that, in order for me to really nail the essence of Dre and Snoop, it had to be like a studied reverence of what they were doing.”
The success of “Still Dre” contributed to the album’s financial success in 2001. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has certified the album 6 platinum, making it one of the renowned producer’s best-selling albums. The album also put Dre’s label, Aftermath Records, on the map, paving the way for highly successful follow-ups by Eminem and 50 Cent.
The song video, directed by Hype Williams, features The D.O.C., Snoop Dogg, and Dr. Dre driving and riding in lowrider automobiles (a reference to The Chronic album’s “Nuthin’ but a ‘G’ Thang” music video).
Eminem is seen pursuing a group of women across a beach, Xzibit is seen driving a lowrider, Funkmaster Flex is seen with Dr. Dre, and Warren G is seen riding with a group of women.
The song was included in the crime, drama, and thriller Training Day(2001), as well as in the in-game radio station West Coast Classics, Grand Theft Auto V (together with “The Next Episode”), and the American drama series Prison Break. Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg have both played the song live several times.
Following the pair’s Super Bowl performance last month, the video for Dr. Dre’s ‘Still D.R.E.’ starring Snoop Dogg has surpassed one billion views on YouTube. The song’s video, created by Hype Williams, has already surpassed one billion views on YouTube as a result of the all-star performance. It’s the first time a video by either Dre or Snoop has surpassed one billion views. The video was initially uploaded on YouTube in October of 2011 and can be seen here.
JAY-Z pays tribute to the late DMX throughout the episode, recounting iconic X anecdotes such as X being the basis for JAY-boycott Z’s of the Grammys in 1999, X’s stage presence being second to none, and more. HBO’s streaming service, HBO Max, has the complete episode available on demand. Revisit the legendary hit with the help of Dre, Snoop, and Hov.
Watch it below.
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