As the news came out last week that Dr. Dre’s long-awaited album Detox was pushed back yet again, this time to 2011, hip-hop fans, myself included, experienced a few emotions. The weary, brave-hearted Detox apologists said, “Oh well, we can wait. We’ve waited this long, it will be worth it. Everyone who has worked on it said it’s going to change the game!” The smug, arrogant brand of hip-hop lover who never really listens to Dr. Dre anyway looked down their collective noses through their oversized non-prescription glasses and said, “Ha! We knew it would never come out! And even if it does, it’s going to suck anyway!”
Before this latest push-back, I was in the former group. I’d wait until the end of days for Detox. You have to understand, I’m a Cali kid, born and raised. While my counterparts on the East Coast grew up listening to Jay-Z, Nas, and Biggie, my rap education was Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, and 2pac. When “California Love” came out, I thought it was the greatest piece of music ever crafted. At that time, like my friends, I was a basketball-obsessed kid who would shout “WEST-SIIIIIDE!” and throw my dubs up if I did something awesome on the basketball court (usually a blocked shot, I was the Mexican Ben Wallace). The aforementioned Death Row Records artists were coolest people on Earth, or at least in my world. They made music about California, for California. They took everything I loved about where I lived and put it on wax for the rest of the world to hear, and I loved them for it. By the time Death Row collapsed, I was heartbroken. Dre had gone his own way and put out a sub-par compilation at Aftermath, 2pac was dead, and I remember buying the issue of The Source with Snoop Dogg and the rest of the No Limit Soldiers on the cover, announcing his signing to Master P’s label. I found comfort in the Westside Connection, but it wasn’t the same. I entered high school with an interest in (gasp!) rock music. Surely, Limp Bizkit, Kid Rock, and Korn wouldn’t beef with each other like 2pac and Biggie. And then 2001 hit.
Dr. Dre’s 2001 album hit me like a ton of bricks. The album was like a tribute to The Chronic and yet sounded nothing like it. Sure, the cast was the same, with some welcome additions like Eminem and Xzibit, but the sound was so different from his past work, and it was so different than what was on the radio at the time (the bling-bling era was in effect. I look back at the old No Limit and Cash Money releases nostalgically now, but I hated all those releases back then). We had the ultimate party album, and it wasn’t long before everyone, including myself, memorized the album, front to back, including skits. The game had changed, for the better. Little did we know we’d have to wait, and are still waiting, for that same feeling from Dr. Dre.
For a decade after 2001, we heard the Detox rumors, starting with its original release date sometime in 2004. One idea was that the album was going to play out like an opera, with Dr. Dre starring as a retired hit man and each guest MC would play a different role. But instead of making his follow-up to 2001, Dr. Dre went on to push his artists, giving The Game, Eminem, and 50 Cent the beats that may or may not have ended up on Detox. Imagine an album with “In Da Club”, “Heat”, “Westside Story”, “How We Do”, “I’m Back”, “Bitch Please”, etc… That’s six heat rocks right there. If you go through his productions from 1999-2005, there are heaters to be found that should have made up Detox.
If I talked rap with you from anywhere between 2004 and Jan. 12, 2010, you could see that I was the biggest Detox apologist on Earth. Dr. Dre didn’t like Detox as much as I did. I shook off the delays like Frank Gore shakes off safeties trying to tackle him. “Rome wasn’t made in a day,” I’d say. “It was seven years between The Chronic and 2001, and 2001 was a classic, so calm the hell down!” Then the beats he started doing didn’t slap like they used to. “He’s saving the heaters for Detox!” I’d say. “He’s going to blow our collective minds!” 2006 turned into 2009 and I was the hip-hop head who cried wolf, for the most part. Defending the album got harder and harder, to the point where even I started to question it. Then the leaks came. Reference tracks with Ludacris and T.I. popped up, and the beat for the T.I.-rapped “Shit Popped Off” made me a less-famous version of Andy Samberg finding out Bruce Willis was dead at the end of The Sixth Sense. Hell, it was even in a Dr. Pepper commercial! The album couldn’t be far behind, could it?
During a trip back from Vegas, I penned my thoughts regarding what I’m looking forward to in the rap world in 2010. That eventually became a column posted on iheartdilla.com on Jan. 12, 2010. What did I look forward to the most in 2010? Detox, of course. I even wrote an impassioned defense of my choice (http://www.iheartdilla.com/2010/01/5-expectations-for-hip-hop-in-2010.html. Click for my shameless self-promotion). Right after posting my defense, the very next page I visited had an article breaking the news that Detox was pushed back to 2011. I felt like I belonged on Failblog.org, or at least a bad sitcom. I could have swore I heard a deflating “womp wooooooooomp” as I read the news. Determined not let the news get me down, I reacted like Kobe getting called for a foul: What? Do you know what you just did? I’m Kobe Effing Bryant! How dare you! I was shocked that Dr. Dre would let me down again, disregarding the work I did spreading the Gospel of Dre and telling the masses to wait, that the promised LP was near.
But take heart, true believers. I haven’t gone to the dark side yet. I’m not fronting on the man who has countless classics to his name. Haters out there are saying, “I won’t even listen to it, even if it does come out.” Now that’s a lie and a half. People who go out of their way to give some indie act a listen because “I’ll listen to anything once,” are often the same ones who tell this egregious lie. Curiosity will get the best of everybody, especially if the word-of-mouth is positive.
I’ve been defending this album longer than some people have known me. I’m expecting great things. And why not? His last two were fire, why not this one? Granted, I don’t expect it to be Pet Sounds, but give me something I can enjoy. Give the critics something to choke on. Give hip-hop the album it’s been dreaming of for the past decade. Give the West Coast its swagger back. Give me a reason to still believe in the guy who got me into hip-hop in the first place. I’m not alone in that sentiment, and Dr. Dre knows it. 2011 or bust.
