While the legendary producer Dr. Dre is notoriously media shy, last night listeners of French radio station Skyrock FM were treated to a new interview with The Good Dr. Accompanied by Interscope boss Jimmy Iovine, both Dre and his business partner took to the airwaves to promote the acclaimed Beats By Dre headphones line. However, the radio station DJs did manage to elicit a few words on Detox from a typically guarded Doc.
The interview began with a great deal of mutual admiration. Describing his partnership with Iovine, Dre lauded the Interscope mastermind as, “One of my best friends (…) one of the reasons why I’m still in music today.” Iovine, meanwhile, spoke highly of he and Dre’s collaboration on the Beats By Dre line, stressing the duos intentions to both “fix the entire chain of music,” and, “Improve the quality of digital music.”
The pair revealed it was Iovine’s appreciation of Dre’s production that motivated their lengthy business relationship. “He heard my album The Chronic,” Dre explained, “The production was something he was really interested in.” Iovine relayed his first time hearing The Chronic, prompting him to announce, “Whoever is making these records, we have to be in business with.” Iovine then went as far as to suggest that Dre is “the father” of the current crop of top-tier producers – Pharrell, Will.I.Am, Timbaland – that are “coming in and making records for our company.” He ultimately attributed Dre’s great success to his “sound.” “Dre is known for his sound,” he claimed, “Ask anybody that.”
The current working relationship between the two was also detailed. “He understood what I was doing,” Dre explained. “You couldn’t ask for more from a record exec. It’s a lot of freedom to be creative.” Iovine, meanwhile, exemplified his trust in Dre. “Any time I think something is really good, I run it by Dre.”
Iovine was then asked to reflect on the overwhelming success of Interscope artist Eminem, and his astonishing rise to fame. “My assistant, who was an intern, brought in Eminem’s CD. I knew I was seeing Dre that weekend. I thought he (Eminem) had something, but I wasn’t sure. I took it to play for Dre on Saturday. Eminem flew out two days later.” “The rest,” he then summarized aptly, “is extraordinary history.”
Next the Skyrock DJs finally pressed Dre on his fabled third solo album. “Yeah, we’ve been talking about that,” Dre replied. Acknowledging the way that press for the headphones often leads to questions about Detox, he chuckled, “My next album was going to promote the headphones, and now it’s the other way around.” Unfortunately, Dre wasn’t exactly forthcoming with a release date. Sounding predictably vague, he said, “As soon as I get home, I get a chance to finish it. It will be out this year.”
At this point, Iovine took the opportunity to interject, promising that, “We will have a single out this summer.” Skyrock DJs asked if the single is the fervently discussed “Under Presure,” Dre’s shrouded collaboration with Jay-Z. “It looks that way,” Iovine hesitantly responded. “Dre’s made another song that’s really good.” Iovine then attempted to explain the delaying of “Under Pressure”: “We didn’t want to drop it right now because Eminem dropped his single suddenly (…) It wasn’t a smart thing to do to drop them at the same time.”
From there, the final part of the conversation returned to the plans for Beats By Dre. Iovine announced his pleasure in the surge of options for legally downloading music. “I’m thrilled that music is online,” he claimed, before adding, “Where it’s going, though, is on-demand streaming. People want to be able to create a way to listen to music in their own fashion.” The Interscope boss then revealed that he and Dre were looking into ways of developing such a service, under the Beats moniker.
With a final promotion of the forthcoming Lebron James Power Beats, the interview concluded. Although it was interesting to hear both Iovine and Dre discuss the Beats range and its future, forum feedback has suggested that listeners were, unsurprisingly, most interested in Detox. The big news, then, is that – “Under Pressure” or not – we can apparently expect a first single this summer, with the mythical Detox slated to eventually follow this year.
Who knows if this latest scheduling will prove accurate, but rest assured that you can rely on DUBCNN to bring you all the latest on what is perhaps the most anticipated Hip-Hop album of all time.
