Yet the stakes couldn’t have been higher for the sequel to his masterpiece, The Chronic.
“I’ve been in the game for 10 years making rap tunes/Ever since honeys was wearing Sassoon,” he boasts on this essential West Coast anthem.ĭre had already launched a modest comeback with his work on Snoop Dogg’s fan-favorite “B Please,” and Eminem’s multiplatinum debut, The Slim Shady LP.
And with his deep, authoritative voice, he matches 2Pac’s more antic, fire-breathing delivery. Dre ingeniously mixed Roger Troutman’s talk-box vocals with an interpolation of the well-worn B-boy break of Joe Cocker’s “Woman to Woman.” The combination gives the song a classic feel a blend of East Coast sample sensibilities and West Coast funk vibes that went unnoticed during the height of hip-hop coastal tensions. (He also spent some time in prison on drunk-driving charges, an experience that he later said forced him to clean up his lifestyle.) Despite behind-the-scenes tensions, “California Love” immediately became the kind of party starter that, 20 years after its release, can still set a dance floor on fire. Dre, for his part, plotted an escape from Death Row, alarmed at the label’s increasingly wayward drift. New signee 2Pac, one of hip-hop’s first great workaholics and a pioneer for rap’s “make 1,000 songs” model of studio profligacy, chafed at Dre’s perfectionist tendencies. Dre’s last great moment with the world-conquering label he and Suge Knight co-founded.