Dr. Dre says he made 247 songs throughout the pandemic
Dr. Dre has spent the last two years working on at least a dozen albums’ worth of material, the modern hip-hop legend said in a new video.
In the clip, shared to Instagram on Thursday (June 30), Dre can be seen sitting behind a mixing desk in a studio, while Busta Rhymes looks at him inquisitively. After being asked a question about his output, Dre repositions himself to look at Busta and says: “N****, I got… Yeah, 247 songs during the pandemic, and then we paused and did a whole album with Marsha Ambrosius [her upcoming fourth album ‘Cascablonco’].
“That’s fucking nutso – and then we came back, and … I did the Grand Theft Auto shit, and now we’re working on my n**** Snoop. And y’know, we’re two days in right now and we’ve got, what, like six bangers?”
Have a look at the full video below:
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The “Grand Theft Auto shit” that Dre mentioned refers to the six songs he made for the Grand Theft Auto Online expansion The Contract, which was released last December and featured Dre as a character. For the songs – which were later compiled into an EP that landed on streaming services this February – Dre collaborated with the likes of Eminem, Anderson .Paak, Rick Ross and Snoop Dogg.
The same month that Dre released ‘The Contract’ as an EP, he performed alongside Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar, Mary J. Blige, 50 Cent and Anderson .Paak for this year’s Super Bowl Halftime Show. In the following weeks, Dre’s albums surged up the US’ albums charts, and the music video for his and Snoop’s 1999 single ‘Still D.R.E.’ hit one billion views on YouTube.
In March, Snoop claimed he became the owner of the master tapes for Dre’s debut album, 1992’s ‘The Chronic’, when he acquired Death Row Records. Dre snapped back at those claims, though, saying he owns 100 per cent of the rights to and masters for the classic album.
The following month, Dre was pictured in a studio – the same one seen above – with Fat Money, the co-writer of Kanye West‘s latest album ‘Donda 2’. It came as rumours began to swirl around a possible release of Dre’s much-delayed album ‘Detox’, which was first announced in 2002 but still hasn’t materialised after two decades. Dre’s most recent full-length effort was 2015’s ‘Compton’.
A new album from Dre was rumoured to be on the cards for last December, after Grandmaster Flash claimed a few months prior that it “will change the game”. Work on that record – which Flavor Flav has also claimed he will be a guest on – was reportedly finished in November of 2020. According to Diamond D, the album could have a runtime of around two hours. It is, of course, yet to be formally announced.