Dr. Dre didn’t want to appear on his seminal 1999 LP ‘2001’ and 1992 debut ‘The Chronic’.
Despite their success, the hip-hop rapper-and-producer has insisted he only intended to produce the record, which featured the likes of Snoop Dogg, Kurupt, Xzibit, Eminem, and Nate Dogg, and his first solo studio effort.
Speaking during a Q&A with his longtime associate Jimmy Iovine to mark the 20th anniversary of ‘2001’ for Apple Music, Dre admitted: "I didn’t wanna appear on the albums at all, to be honest.
"I just wanted to produce, find artists and produce them. And Doc, The D.O.C. talked me into getting on the mic and doing this thing."
Last year, Dre and Iovine teamed up on the four-part Netflix series ‘The Defiant Ones’, which tells the story of their working relationship and the former’s journey from early beginnings as a record producer and member of hip-hop group NWA, through to separately founding Interscope and Death Row Records before co-founding the Beats Electronics headphone company, which they sold to Apple for $3 billion in a cash and stock deal, the largest acquisition in Apple’s history.
Whilst promoting the docu-series, the pair both admitted they "partly" got into music to bed women.
Iovine was asked by the late Beatles legend John Lennon, whilst working on his solo LP ‘Walls and Bridges’ in 1974, what drew him to his role as an engineer-and-producer at Record Plant recording studios in Los Angeles, when he made the confession.
He recalled: "I was in the studio with John Lennon and we were doing ‘Walls and Bridges’.
"When you’re in there six weeks in a row, every day, with somebody, you start to forget things to talk about.
" So John looks at me and he goes, ‘James’ — he used to call me James – ‘why did you get into this?’
"I said, ‘Well, you know, erm . . .’ I’m thinking, ‘I gotta answer right, it’s John Lennon, right?
"So I say, ‘You know, I saw you guys on ‘The Ed Sullivan Show’, I saw the [Rolling] Stones, I bought a guitar, I started a band, and this is the best I can do.’
Dre agreed: "It’s definitely a part of it."
And Iovine added: "For everybody!
"Everybody’s in it to meet somebody that you connect with, right? You don’t have to put it as bluntly as [wanting to get laid]. I just wanted to get out of my neighbourhood, man.
"I was headed down the docks. And I didn’t want to do that."
Meanwhile, the ‘What’s The Difference’ rapper is set to be honoured by the Grammys for his influential production work.
The 54-year-old music legend – who has worked on records for the likes of Tupac, Eminem, Snoop, 50 Cent, The Game, Kendrick Lamar, Anderson .Paak and more – will be saluted at the Producers & Engineers Wing on January 22, 2020, ahead of the actual Grammys on January 26.
Dr. Dre didn’t want to appear on his 2001 solo album
