The main thing Dr Dre liked about Snoop Dogg in the 1990s
The history of West Coast hip hop would have looked a lot different had Dr Dre somehow not encountered the silky delivery of a young Snoop Doggy Dogg.
Dre was apparently attending a party during the early 1990s when someone played a mixtape of one of Snoop’s early demos. Dre was impressed by what he heard, and, through their mutual acquaintance Warren G, the two were eventually introduced. So began one of the most iconic hip hop partnerships of all time.
Dre signed Snoop to his Future Shock label, which would, in time, become Death Row Records, and the pair began collaborating in earnest. Snoop played a key part in Dre’s first solo album, The Chronic, while Dre was the master of the former’s own debut Doggystyle, and together they honed and popularised the whole G-funk sound.
Dre and Snoop were central to early ’90s West Coast hip hop, shaping it and hip-hop more broadly forever. Their musical chemistry was at the heart of an entire scene, and, from Dre’s perspective, their ability to work together was rooted in one of Snoop’s traits in particular.
“I was mainly interested in how he responded to directions,” Dre told the LA Times in 2007, looking back on his early working relationship with Snoop, “That’s always an important test with me”.
Dre insisted that, while “talent gets you in the door” with him, he is looking for much more than that. He wants a collaborator with whom he gels, someone who can take feedback and communicate well. Dre looks at a potential collaborator and wonders if he’s going to click with them. Are they going to be able to laugh and chat in the studio?
“If not,” he said, “I’d rather work with someone else”.
Snoop met those expectations, and the pair worked together famously well. They shared mutual success during the early ’90s, and, even today, more than three decades later, they still share a bond and working relationship that sees them come back together from time to time.
Dre produced Snoop’s 2024 album Missionary, which was a full-circle sort of moment for two men whose partnership had begun so long ago. The record clearly lacked the cutting edge of their ’90s work, but it nonetheless proved they could still get into the studio to collaborate, even after all this time.