Dr Dre walks into the room and glances around. “No drinks in here?” he says. “No shots?! What the f***, man?” He turns heel to the hotel corridor. It is a corridor littered with humidifiers panting as they try to clear the smell of marijuana. It is a fruitless, futile task. There is one in the room, too. Dre returns, drink in hand, now with Snoop Dogg. “Turn that shit off,” Snoop says, nodding to it. “Don’t be f***ing with my smoke.” He pulls a brass bin to the table as a makeshift ashtray, and lights a joint about the length and width of his middle finger. The smoking laws over here aren’t posing a problem, then? Snoop grins. “Laws? What laws?” His eyes are the colour of a cue ball.
Though the pair’s fame will forever be linked to each other — thanks to albums The Chronic (1992), Doggystyle (1993) and 2001 (er, 1999) — it is unusual to see them together in the UK. Last Thursday, at a party in Flipper’s Roller Boogie that drew Jude Bellingham, Idris Elba, Anya Taylor-Joy, Shaquille O’Neal and Lebron James, they gave their first performance together here in more than three decades. Astonishingly, Eminem joined them; it was a historic show. “We only ever performed here one time,” says Snoop. “Brixton Academy. All hood, not like the shit we’re on now.” Why wait so long? Dre shrugs. “There is no reason.” Snoop likens them to Batman and Robin; often separate, but better together.
That era, of The Chronic and Doggystyle, seems to be a theme for Dre, 59, and Snoop, 52. In 2022, Snoop bought Death Row records, on which both albums were released. The label was first founded by Dre in 1991, under Jimmy Iovine, but filed for bankruptcy in 2006. How do they feel about having it back? “None of us liked it in the beginning, let’s say that,” says Snoop, surprisingly. “But to me, it was a business move. I’m smart enough to know that this is something that’s connected to me and my legacy. And if I control it, I’ll make the value even more than what it is. And then at the same time, I can restore my legacy that people think is smut and think is negative. And one day soon, I’ll sell it for a whole lot of money.”
When you are the culture, you dictate what the outcome is. Dr Dre and I are leaders, not followers
Does he worry about his legacy? Some of Snoop and Dre’s songs are notoriously packed with misogyny and violence. Does he write differently now? “Yes, I’m more mature. I have a bigger fan base and I’m smarter now and I’m sharper. And I’m thankful that I got somebody like him” — he stabs at Dre with his blunt — “who’s really helping the writing, because I was getting stuck.”
Does that mean he avoids certain topics, worried he’ll be cancelled? “No way. No way we get cancelled, man. We are the culture. You can’t cancel the culture.” He sits up, and twists his mouth in sarcasm. “It’s just a bunch of motherf***ers that you don’t know, just typing, saying that you ain’t hot no more. But when you are the culture, you dictate what the outcome of everything is. You don’t follow that shit, you lead.” Dre raises his glass. “We’re not followers.”
Evidently not. At a time when sales of gin across the globe are in decline, the pair are here to promote Gin&Juice (bydreandsnoop.com), a line of canned cocktails named for Snoop’s debut single. Iovine is another investor. “We didn’t just put our faces, our names on a product,” says Dre. “We went to the laboratory and the whole shit and created everything from the bottom up.”
I imagine the tasting sessions must have been fun. “They were,” nods Dre, taking a drink. “For me, at least. Snoop, Jimmy, not so much.” Why not, Snoop?
“This is the shit I do,” says Snoop, through a haze. “In the beginning stages, when you trying to get it right, you have to really like alcohol to keep trying it over and over and over again. Dr Dre, he really likes gin. I really like this shit.” He nods to his blunt again; he doesn’t drink at all, I notice. “Now, if this was a smoking contest or a smoking brand, I would be the sampling motherf***er...”
“When all of us bring all of our expertise to the table, and when we’re together and really on our shit, nobody can f*** with us,” says Dre, with what might be the most gangsta tag line in canned cocktails — a category over here more readily associated with gentle days in the park, trips on the train, hen dos. Of the four flavours (melon, citrus, passion fruit, apricot) Dre’s recommendation is the apricot. The passion fruit tastes rather like fizzy Um Bongo.
Beside the tinnies, Snoop and Dre are also promoting Snoop’s new album. Although Snoop has featured on Dre’s biggest hits — Nuthin’ but a ‘G’ Thang, Still D.R.E., The Next Episode — it’s been a long time since they partnered for such a substantial project. “Doggystyle is the only album I produced for Snoop,” says Dre. “Thirty years later we decided to get together and flip it, and call this one Missionary.” It will be out in the autumn, he thinks, and 16 tracks long.
Iovine pokes his head around the door. “It’s extraordinary, extraordinary,” he says of the record. “Snoop is in a whole other place, it’s really fantastic.” Snoop nods: “It’s my best work.”
“The record stands against anything. It also stands very, very high against what’s being made today,” Iovine continues. “Of course, what’s being made today… I said once that fame has replaced great. You had to be great to be famous at one time. But now, there’s a lot of time spent being famous, mining Instagram, mining this, mining that. Not on the work.” He sighs. “That was dope, Jimmy,” says Snoop. Dre looks thoughtful.
Once I finished creating the music, I never listen to it again. Listening after it comes out is a form of masturbation
Will the record go back to their classic G-Funk sound that made them stars way back when? Snoop splutters. “Nu-uh!” He gestures to Dre. “This man don’t know nothing about going backwards. He probably ain’t never listened to The Chronic or Doggystyle 20 times.” So I’ve listened to Dre’s work more than he has? “F*** yeah!” says Snoop, his free hand slamming on the table.
“I don’t live with a rear view,” nods Dre quietly. “Once I finished creating the music, I never listen to it again. Me personally, listening to the music after it comes out, over and over again, is a form of masturbation. I just want to move forward.”
Is that why, I wonder, Dre declined to work with Prince and Michael Jackson, because it would have been too backwards-looking? “I’ll keep it a buck with you; it just all boils down to fear. It’s like, what am I going to do with these guys? What am I just going to pick Prince up, Michael Jackson gets in the passenger seat, and then we hang out at the restaurant?” He laughs incredulously.
And what about Drake v Kendrick? “Oh, Kendrick, 100 per cent, 1,000 per cent. That’s our family.” Snoop looks at me, faintly disgusted. I’ve been categorically warned not to ask about other big names in hip hop who have made the headlines lately.
Fine, fine. What else will they be up to while they’re in London? “I like to ride bikes here,” says Snoop. Like a Boris bike? “Yeah, I put on my little shorts and my little helmet and ride through the city and nobody knows it’s me.” He lets out a giggle. “You know what was an attraction of mine, to London, as a kid? It was to meet Benny Hill, right? Because Benny Hill was a bad motherf***er in California. He was funny as f***, too! And we loved him. Like, I don’t even think y’all know how much he meant to the African-American community. He meant the f***ing world to us. The shit he was doing on TV, they would never do in America.”
Dre is murmuring in appreciation, tapping his glass. Why, I wonder, has there never been a Snoop and Dre remix of the Benny Hill theme? They laugh. “Oh, we done it many times,” says Snoop. “We took it further than Benny. Benny was playin’ with it, we put it in.”
“Benny was the tip,” says Dre. The ice tinkles in his glass. For a moment, they look like a pair of naughty school boys. It could be 30 years ago.
