Snoop Dogg first got introduced to the world on the 1992 breakout hit by Dr Dre, ‘Deep Cover.’ Although the song was not a conventional G-funk track, it was Dre’s debut solo single and the beginning of what grew into the legendary empire of Death Row.
Produced by the Compton beatmaker for the soundtrack of Deep Cover the film and recorded in 1991, the single was the first commercial release by Dre to feature Snoop. However, according to the Doggfather musician, he hated the song.
Speaking about his favourite Death Row tracks, Rapaport declared, “You know what’s one of my favourite songs that I wonder if you guys have ever performed it live? I was listening to it this morning as I was coming here, and I would put it this as one of my favourite songs is ‘Lil Ghetto Boy’,” To which Snoop responded, “Never”, revealing neither he nor Dre had ever performed that song live.
Snoop continued, “Not one time ever in my whole life! That’s crazy that you ask about that ’cause I always use to tell Dre, ‘Let’s perform this song, let’s do this song,’ but he’d be like, ‘Nah, I ain’t f*cking with that.”
However, the Long Beach act then disclosed that Dr Dre didn’t even like to perform ‘Deep Cover’, unveiling, “He never like performing ‘Deep Cover’! He hated that song! Like he hated it to the point where he didn’t even wanna put it out. He had just come off the N.W.A Niggaz 4 Life album that didn’t sound like none of that sh*t on N.W.A so it was different.”
‘Deep Cover’ set the tone for what was to come. Dre’s unique production style and break away from N.W.A. saw his sound completely evolve. Following the single, Dre officially formed Death Row Records alongside infamous businessman Suge Knight. It was here that the magic happened, and before long, he was working on his groundbreaking debut album, The Chronic.
‘Deep Cover’ is still a legendary song and its beat has been freestyle over many times, in 1998 Fat Joe and Big Pun released their own version of the track entitle, ‘Twinz (Deep Cover 98) which even features Snoop Dogg in its music video. You can listen to the original in thevdeo below.
