Snoop Dogg and Dr.Dre are on a promo tour for his upcoming album, Missionary.
Missionary, fully produced by Dr.Dre, marks the 30th anniversary of Doggystyle, Snoop’s debut album that the was also produced by Dre.
The legendary West Coast duo stopped by the “Stephen A. Smith Show” for a far-ranging discussion on the album and the quality of today’s music production.
During the interview, both Snoop and Dr.Dre expressed their frustrations about younger rappers who sample classic records, arguing that many of them are tarnishing the original works rather than honoring them.
“Our music is always going to outweigh who how old we are cause that music that we made 30 years ago still sound better than some of the ish that is out right now,” Snoop told Smith. “So what makes you think we can’t out do that?”
“When you hear it [the album], it ain’t going to have ish to do with age. It’s timeless.”
Snoop further explained that his goal for the album is to “reset the music industry.” He believes that there is a lack in craftsmanship and quality music today.
“My thing for this album is to reset the music industry. Get back to musicianship. Get back to making quality music. Get back to having a whole body of work and get back to having a project that visually connects to the sonics,” Snoop explained before Dre chimed in to accuse many producers of using the same rolling 808 drum instrumentation in music. He calls this a “little bit of a cheat.”
“Most of these hit records are based off of a sample”
Dr.Dre added, “I think that right now the artist and producers are using all the same software and all the same technology which is why all the music sounds the same.”
“I think that all the music that has come out over the last five maybe even 10 years are using the same drums, the rolling 808 drum.” He continued, “all of these artists are using the same exact drum beats right which is a little bit of a cheat in my opinion so I’m waiting for musicianship to come back.”
Smith raised the question about how did hip hop arrive to a point where producers heavily rely on the equipment as “opposed to their natural gifts.”
“It started happening because of computers and the internet,” Dre responded. “This software made it easy you could just go and download a beat and rap over it and make a [ __ ] hit record you.”
Snoop chimed in and lamented that while sampling can be a powerful tool for creativity, it often leads to a lack of originality and authenticity in contemporary music.
“Most of these hit records are based off of a sample,” he explained. “We complemented the sample that we used. If we took a sample from somebody, we didn’t make your record depreciate. We actually made it appreciate…And now it has a different sound or texture to it that didn’t exist at that time.”