With Snoop’s seminal debut leaving its teens this past weekend (check out the tribute to the samples here, and the demos here), Paul Cantor tracked down the reclusive former head of Death Row Records to divulge his thoughts on the album.
Some choice quotes:
What do you remember about Doggystyle’s production?
[It] was was pretty much luck. Everybody thought [Dr. Dre] would be doing the records, but Daz pretty much did the whole album. And at the end of the day, once Daz finished it, everybody wanted Andre to get the credit. Next thing I know Daz is having a meeting with Andre and them and came back and said, “It’s okay, give me a few bucks and I’ll sign anything over that says produced by Andre instead of me.”
Do you think Doggystyle solidified Death Row as a label?
When we put out The Chronic people felt there’s no way in the world somebody can ever do an album and it come out that well. When The Chronic was out, even Snoop will tell you, if he came on the Interscope side, he didn’t see Jimmy [Iovine] any of those guys call Snoop in the office, chop it up with him… because he wasn’t the one. And then when Doggystyle came out, shit, he couldn’t walk in there without them trying to give him some weed. People thought it couldn’t get no better. But the Dogg Pound came in and done well. And then came Tupac. It wasn’t Tupac because he was a new artist. Tupac was on Interscope the whole time. They couldn’t break a record on him. They couldn’t make him a superstar. But the minute I got Pac out of prison…
You can read the rest of the interview at Rolling Stone. You can also check out this dope piece on the album’s anniversary c/o the DopeHouse’s other resident writer Paul Thompson.
