Kanye West & Dr. Dre - Jesus Is King II (2022)

'Jesus Is King II' is a cancelled studio album collaboration between Kanye West and Dr. Dre, and as the name implies, it bears some relation to West's ninth studio album from 2019, 'Jesus Is King', primarily by having reworked versions of songs from that project. Unlike most other unreleased albums from West's catalogue, 'Jesus Is Lord II' has no direct successor, but as the album was being worked on concurrently with 'God's Country', then it can be assumed that it was scrapped in favour of that record, and/or 'Donda: With Child'. On 18 November 2019, less than one month after the release of 'Jesus Is King', West shared a tweet that read, "Ye and Dre Jesus is King Part II coming soon". On 16  January of the following year a Dr. Dre-produced version of 'Up From The Ashes' allegedly leaked, and although the song was released as part of 'Donda' in 2021, it was not the Dr. Dre version, while 'LA Monster' leaked two months later, leading to some speculation that it was part of the '...Part II' album. The last mention of the project by West was him thanking Eminem for hopping on the remix for 'Use This Gospel' later that same year, and this remix was actually released in 2022 as part of DJ Khaled's thirteenth album 'God Did'. After this, the album was never brought up again by either West or Dre, and so it was assumed to be completely cancelled. On 25 September 2023, a blind groupbuy occurred priced at $1,000, and on completion the contents were revealed to be a full copy of 'Thank God For Drugs', as well as a full copy of 'Jesus Is King: The Dr. Dre Version'. This leak would receive significant media attention in contrast to past leaks, given that it was a full copy of an album of which very few tracks had leaked in the past. So despite the mystery surrounding this album, it does actually exist and can now be heard by fans, who can judge if it's an improvement on the original version or not. It closes with the non-album 'This Is The Glory', an unreleased song by Kanye West and Dr. Dre, featuring Snoop Dogg, which may have been worked on for 'Jesus Is King II', although it wasn't included on the groupbuy disc, but it's just too good to ignore. 

 
Track listing

01 Every Hour/Selah (feat. Martha Ambrosius, Dr. Dre & Sunday Service Choir)
02 LA Monster (feat. A$AP Ferg)
03 Water (feat. Victory & Ant Clemons)
04 Closed On Sunday (feat. Anderson Paak)
05 On God (feat. THURZ)
06 Hands On (feat. Travis Scott & Fred Hammond)
07 Everything We Need (feat. Ty Dolla $ign, Ant Clemons & Martha Ambrosius)
08 Ashes (feat. Sunday Service Choir & Nikki Grier)

09 Follow God
10 God Is (feat. Sunday Service Choir)
11 Use This Gospel (feat. Eminem)

12 This Is The Glory (feat. Dr. Dre & Snoop Dogg)

Dr. Dre & Ice Cube - Helter Skelter (1995)

After his acrimonious and very public departure from NWA, the possibility of Ice Cube ever re-entering the same circles as other members of 'The World’s Most Dangerous Group' felt like a pipe dream. Slighted by the "Benedict Arnold" moniker that they’d given him after he left the group, the release of his infamous 'No Vaseline' diss drove a wedge that seemed as though it could never be healed. However, Dr. Dre's decision to follow his former friend's lead and depart from Jerry Heller's Ruthless Records would help repair the rift between the two, and as he was now at the forefront of his own G-funk-tinged musical revolution at Suge Knight's Death Row Records, he then reached out to Ice Cube to make a hilarious cameo in the iconic video for The Chronic's 'Let Me Ride', and this led to speculation over the status of both Dre and Cube's personal and professional relationship. When Snoop Doggy Dogg's 'Doggystyle' album was released it seemed that a collaboration was on the cards, as when listeners flipped over to the back of the album they found a list of records 'soon to be released on Death Row', including one titled 'Dr Dre/Ice Cube "Helter Skelter"'. 

In 1994 Dre and Cube started to tease fans about their collaboration, even selling T-Shirts hyping the album up. One track did appear, with 'Natural Born KIllaz' featuring on the soundtrack to Snoop Dogg's short film 'Murder Was The Case', but the deadline of summer 1995 came and went without another hint of new music from the duo. On account of Dre's well-publicized perfectionism, this didn't necessarily dash hopes that the record would ever see the light of day, but this delay did open up the door for someone else to take over the concept. While he was with Death Row Records, the The D.O.C. would often ghost-write lyrics for Dr. Dre, but he always felt that his contributions were treated dismissively, and so when he left Death Row he decided to release his own album using the title 'Helter Skelter', and featuring a lot of the lyrics that he'd written for the Dre/Cube collaboration. Although his vocals had been irrevocably damaged in a car accident in the years since his landmark debut album 'No One Can Do It Better', he still decided to go ahead with the album, as for him it was never about bringing his own vision to life, but it was more important to take Dre's idea from under him, admitting to longtime collaborator Erotic D that he simply wanted to name the record before Dre could release his own version of it. 

This could have been the final straw for the Dre/Cube version, which has never seen the light of day, and is seldom, if ever, mentioned any more by either party. Some scattered fragments of it do remain out there, with 'My Life' first surfacing online in the early 2000's, and while Cube doesn't appear on the track in its present form, fans believe that it was earmarked for their joint effort. It's also been said that the instrumental used on 'Can't C Me' from Tupac's seminal 'All Eyez On Me' was initially allocated for 'Helter Skelter', while the sinister tones used in Scarface's 'Game Over', (featuring Dre, Cube, and Too $hort), were first laid down during the sessions for the shelved album. Ice Cube has his own theory of why 'Helter Skelter' stalled, and he lays the blame at the door of Eminem and 50 Cent, who he felt took up too much of Dre's time when they joined Interscope, and by the time those artists had become established on the label, they'd missed the boat on their collaboration. However, fans who really wanted to hear the album have gone to great lengths to piece it together, and one of the very best efforts is by Nas The Judge on Youtube, who has taken the tracks where we know they collaborated, plus some where they are both present, and remixed others, to produce perhaps the closest that we'll ever get to hearing the original 'Helter Skelter'. There's only one poor quality scan of the cover online, so I've done my best to improve it, and we can now all hear an album that we really do wish existed.    

Track listing

01 Intro
02 Die Mutha Fucka Die (Dr. Dre)
03 Chin Check (NWA)
04 Started This (Dr. Dre/Ice Cube)
05 Natural Born Killaz (Dr. Dre/Ice Cube)
06 Game Over (Dr. Dre/Ice Cube/Scarface)
07 My Life (Smoke Weed 4 Hours) (Dr. Dre/Ice Cube - NTJ remix)
08 California Love (Dr. Dre/Ice Cube - NTJ remix)
09 Can't C Me (Dr. Dre/Ice Cube feat. G Clinton - NTJ remix)
10 Better Recognize (Dr. Dre/Ice Cube - NTJ remix)

Dr. Dre - Detox (2010)

The period from mid 1999 to 2002 was the most successful of Dr. Dre's career, as after struggling to establish his new Aftermath Entertainment label, he struck gold with Eminem's debut, 'The Slim Shady LP', and then his own second album '2001'. As the latter moved more than 7 million copies, it dominated urban radio throughout 2000 with singles like 'Still D.R.E.', 'Forget About Dre', 'The Next Episode', 'Xxxplosive' and 'Fuck You', while Aftermath issued Eminem’s diamond-certified classic 'The Marshall Mathers LP' and Xzibit's platinum 'Restless', and became one of the hottest rap labels in the industry. As Dre was already considered one of the greatest producers of the past 25 years, a third solo record would have cemented his reputation in the rap hierarchy, and so he embarked on creating 'Detox', which he often called his 'final album'. During the next 10 years or so, he reportedly worked on tracks with more than two dozen rappers, producers and vocalists, from Aftermath stars like Eminem, 50 Cent, Busta Rhymes and Kendrick Lamar, to T.I., Rick Ross, Lil Wayne, Skylar Grey and Mary J. Blige. For nearly a decade, he publicly vacillated on whether or not 'Detox' would ever be released, and then just as he seemed primed to deliver the album the world was waiting for, he apparently decided not to put it out after all, leaving us with only Internet leaks and rumors of what might have been. The album was originally intended to be a concept album about the life of a hitman, possibly inspired by his impressive cameo in the 2001 film 'Training Day', but by the end of the year that idea had been ditched, and in November Ice Cube told MTV News that Dre had postponed 'Detox' to work on Cube's Aftermath debut, although that project never appeared, and Cube eventually left the label. By 2004 his time was being completely taken up with running Aftermath, as it was one of the hottest labels around, thanks to a roster that included 50 Cent, Eminem, Busta Rhymes and others. In 2006 Scratch magazine published a 'Detox' cover story, re-igniting the rumours of an imminent release, but 2007 came and went with no record, and Dre gave an extensive interview to the LA Times, where he admitted he was "really hoping to have it out this year, but i's going to have to be pushed back a while because of some other things I’ve got to work on". In 2008 Snoop Dogg claimed that the long-gestating album was finished, but that seemed premature when Dre announced in November that he was going back into the studio in a couple of months. 

In 2009 leaks from the seemingly never-ending sessions began to appear online, with tracks like 'I Am Hip-Hop (Detox)', 'Topless' and 'Shit Popped Off' surfacing, and in 2010 things finally seemed to be happening, with a collaboration with Jay Z, 'Under Pressure', being announced as the album's first single. However, when an unfinished version of 'Under Pressure' leaked, Dre posted a message saying that it was an incomplete song and that he was still working on it, and an official version has yet to appear. The end of the year finally brought the first official 'Detox' music, with 'Kush', featuring Snoop Dogg and Akon, earning mixed reviews, and peaking at Number 34 on the pop charts, while 'I Need A Doctor' proved to be the bigger hit, thanks to soaring pop production by Alex Da Kid. One theory about the album is that 'Detox' is a catch-all name for everything Dr. Dre has worked on for the past 15 years, with material from it being released when he felt the time was right. The album therefore became more mythic in the hip-hop community, and it served, whether Dre intended to or not, as a useful publicity tease even as the hype proved impossible to live up to. Between 2009 and 2011, the best of the hundreds of song snippets he worked on were leaked, and there are numerous CDs of supposed 'Detox' tracks doing the rounds, including a 10 volume CD set of 'The Detox Chroniclez', but still a definitive track listing proves elusive. By checking out the various fan-made albums, and seeing which tracks they agree should be included, I've complied my own version, mostly based on the one by Longtou Edits, but including some different versions and some of my own edits. Given an unlimited budget and no deadline, you could spend the rest of your life locked in a perfectionist's prison, constantly terrified that the music you'll make next will be better than the music you've made so far, but with each passing day you only become further away from the finish line. Until Dre realises this and releases the album, all we can do is collect what's leaked so far and tell him that it sounds perfectly fine to us.   

Track listing

01 Intro 
02 Die Hard (feat. Eminem) 
03 Coming Back (feat. T.I.)
04 Mr. Prescription (feat. Nikki Grier & Slim The Mobster) 
05 This Is Detox (I Am Hip-Hop) (feat. T.I.) 
06 Topless (feat. Eminem & Nas)  
07 Kush (feat. Snoop Dogg & Akon)  
08 Say Dr. Dre (feat. Crooked I) 
09 Popped Off (feat. T.I.) 
10 Under Pressure (feat. Jay-Z) 
11 The Doctor  
12 OG's Theme (feat. Ludacris)  
13 Westcoast Party (feat. Young Knox & O.G. Rhymez)  
14 Underdog (feat. Nate Dogg) 
15 I Need A Doctor (feat. Eminem & Skylar Grey)  
16 Hey Young World (feat. The Game & Snoop Dogg)
17 Turn Me On  
18 Good Things (Interlude) 
19 Chillin' (feat. Swizz Beatz) 
20 The Next Episode 2006 (feat. Snoop Dogg & Nate Dogg)  
21 Topless (Reprise) (feat. T.I & Nas) 
22 Kush (Remix) (feat. Snoop Dogg, The Game & Slim The Mobster) 
23 Doggisodes (Outro) 

Dr. Dre - Poppa's Got A Brand New Funk - The Chronic II (1996)

Following the release the Dr. Dre's 'The Chronic' album in 1992, he swiftly became one of the best-selling American artists of 1993, and so he could pretty much do what he liked without having to worry about the commercial consequences. This included producing Snoop Doggy Dogg's debut album 'Doggystyle' in 1993, and then directing the 1994 short film 'Murder Was The Case', in which Dogg acted and Dre wrote the soundtrack. The same year he announced that he was working with Ice Cube on an album to be called 'Helter Skelter', although that has yet to appear, but by 1995/1996 he was ready to release the follow-up to 'The Chronic'. However, in March 1996, just before the album was due to be issued, he left Death Row Records due to incessant infighting, and he formed his own label Aftermath Records, and 'The Chronic II: A New World Odor (Popps'a Got A Brand New Funk)' was cancelled. Instead of releasing it on his own label he issued some of the tracks as singles, but then scrapped the rest and recorded a brand new album, with '2001' coming out on Aftermath in 1999, and including none of the aborted 'The Chronic II' tracks. Of the singles which came out from 1994 onwards, 'Natural Born Killaz' was written for the soundtrack to the 'Murder Was The Case' film in 1994, and featured Ice Cube And Sam Sneed, while 'California Love' was credited to '2Pac featuring Dr. Dre and Roger Troutman'. 1997 saw the release of 'Game Over' from Scarface featuring Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Too $hort & B Real, and while all of those songs appear on this album, these are the original versions, including 'California Love' without 2Pac, 'Zoom' with Snoop Doggy Dogg instead of LL Cool J, and 'Natural Born Killaz' with a verse by Sam Sneed. I've said before that I'm not the biggest fan of hip-hop, but since finding these albums from Dr. Dre, Snoop Doggy Dogg and MF DOOM/Ghostface Killah I've come to realise that I was missing out on something by ignoring them in the early 90's, and this album in particular is swiftly becoming one of my favourites.   

Track listing

01 Intro (feat. George Clinton & Chris Tucker)

02 Da Godfather (feat. Baby S)

03 California Love (feat. Roger Troutman)

04 Split Personality (feat. E-A Ski)

05 My Life (Smokin' Weed 4 Hours)

06 It's Entertainment (Skit)

07 Monay (feat. King T. & Dawn Robinson)

08 Street Scholars (feat. J-Flexx & Sam Sneed)

09 Zoom (feat. Snoop Doggy Dogg)

10 211 (Skit) (feat. Nancy Fletcher & Fingas)

11 Natural Born Killaz (feat. Sam Sneed & Ice Cube)

12 Blueberry (feat. Snoop Doggy Dogg & Sam Sneed)

13 Game Over (feat. Scarface, Too $hort & Ice Cube)

14 House Calls (feat. Baby S & the Casino Crew)

Dr. Dre - The Chronicle (1992)

Dr. Dre's debut studio album 'The Chronic' was released in 1992 on Death Row Records, and made him one of the best-selling American music artists of 1993. It earned him a Grammy Award for Best Rap Solo Performance for the single 'Let Me Ride', as well as several accolades for the single 'Nuthin' But A 'G' Thang'. Not only that, but also that year he produced Death Row label-mate Snoop Doggy Dogg's debut album 'Doggystyle', as well as mentoring producers such as his stepbrother Warren G, Snoop Dogg's cousin Daz Dillinger, Sam Sneed and Mel-Man. The album is named after a slang term for high-grade cannabis, and its cover is an homage to Zig-Zag rolling papers, and although it was a Dre solo album, it featured many appearances by then-emerging American rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg, who used the album as a launch pad for his own solo career, making him a superstar before he'd even released a recording of his own. The album peaked at number three on the Billboard 200 and has been certified 3x Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, which led to Dr. Dre becoming one of the top ten best-selling American performing artists of 1993. It established Dre's patented G-funk sound, consisting of fat, blunted Parliament-Funkadelic beats, soulful backing vocals, and live instruments for the rolling basslines and whiny synths, and for the next four years it was virtually impossible to hear mainstream hip-hop that wasn't affected in some way by Dre and his patented G-funk. The album launched the careers of many West Coast hip hop artists, including Snoop Doggy Dogg, Daz Dillinger, Kurupt, Nate Dogg, and Warren G, all of whom subsequently pursued successful commercial careers, and 'The Chronic' is widely regarded as the album that re-defined West Coast hip hop, demonstrating gangsta rap's commercial potential as a multi-platinum commodity, while establishing G-funk as the most popular sound in hip hop music, and Death Row Records as a dominant force in 1990's hip hop. The album was re-released in 2009 as 'The Chronic Re-Lit', which included seven previously unreleased tracks, but these weren't the only out-takes to surface over the years, and so when a number of them appeared on the net they were eagerly pounced on by fans, with the the most frequent comment being 'why don't they make music this good today?'. I've added those seven tracks from the 'Re-Lit' re-issue to another half a dozen that later surfaced online, including the original longer version of 'Rat Tat Tat Tat', to make a companion album to that classic record, which I've wittily titled 'The Chronicle', as taken together they provide a complete history of the album that jump-started hip-hop in the 90's. A few of these out-takes have also appeared on lost collections from Snoop Doggy Dogg, as both artists featured heavily on the tracks and so they could have appeared under the name of either artist, and so to avoid duplication I've removed them from this album as they can be heard on the recent Snoop Doggy Dogg post.     

Track listing

01 Die Muthafucka Die (feat. Top Dogg)
02 Poor Young Dave (feat. Snoop Doggy Dogg)
03 Foo Nay Mic (feat. CPO)
04 Rat Tat Tat Tat (original recording feat. Snoop Doggy Dogg)
05 O.G. to B.G. (feat. Snoop Doggy Dogg)
06 Slippin' In The West (feat. CPO & Kurupt)
07 Niggaz Don't Give A Fuck (feat. Tha Dogg Pound, The Lady Of Rage & Snoop Doggy Dogg)
08 Dogg Collar (feat. Snoop Doggy Dogg)
09 Mr. Officer (feat. RBX & Prince Ital Joe)
10 Touchdown (feat. Snoop Doggy Dogg)
11 Smoke Enough Bud (feat. Jewell & Snoop Doggy Dogg)
12 187um (Deep Cover Remix feat. Snoop Doggy Dogg)
13 Would You Ride (feat. Kurupt, Tyrone, Daz, Snoop Doggy Dogg & Amber)

Snoop Doggy Dogg - Playin' 4 Keepz (1991) UPDATE

There were a couple of tracks on this album where I wasn't 100% happy with the quality, and luckily I stumbled on a better recording of '187 (It's On)', so I've replaced the slightly thin-sounding version with this much better one. The Yandex link is updated and so is Soulseek, so either download the whole thing again, or just the one song from Soulseek. 'Longbeach Is A Muthafucca' will have to stay there unless I find a better version of that one. 

Track listing

01 Let 'Em Understand (feat. Tha Foesum)
02 Long Beach Is A Muthafucca (feat. Warren G)
03 Do You Remember (feat. George Clinton)
04 187 (It's On) (feat. Lady Of Rage)
05 Playin' 4 Keepz (feat. Tha Convicts)
06 Niggaz Is Like That (feat. Chocolate & CPO)
07 County Bluez 
08 The Message
09 Smoke On (feat. Po', Broke, and Lonely)
10 Dope Slang Symphony (feat. Nate Dogg, Kurupt Tha Kingpin, and Dat Nigga Daz)
11 True To The Game
12 Hoe I Like (feat. Dr. Dre)

Snoop Doggy Dogg - Playin' 4 Keepz (1991)

Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr., known professionally as Snoop Dogg (previously Snoop Doggy Dogg and briefly Snoop Lion), was born on 20 October 1971, and shortly after graduating from high school at Long Beach Polytechnic High School in 1989, he was arrested for possession of cocaine, and for the next three years, was frequently incarcerated. With his two cousins Nate Dogg and Lil' ½ Dead, and friend Warren G, he recorded homemade tapes as the group 213, named after the area code of their native Long Beach at that time. One of his early solo freestyles over 'Hold On' by En Vogue was on a mixtape that fortuitously wound up with Dr. Dre, who was so impressed by the sample that he called Broadus to audition. When he began recording, he took the stage name Snoop Doggy Dogg, and together he and Dr. Dre began working on the theme song of the 1992 film 'Deep Cover', and then on Dr. Dre's debut solo album 'The Chronic'. He had in fact been recording for a while before that big break, and had even taped an album in 1991 for Future Shock Entertainment called 'Over The Counter', which was released as a cassette tape that year. It was originally 'Over The Counter', and not Dr. Dre's 'The Chronic', that was to be the debut album for both Snoop Doggy Dogg and the Death Row label, but the record was pulled off the production line and never had an official release, other than the cassette copies sold at swap-meets. This was due to the fact that Death Row did not have the financial capabilities to support itself as a legitimate record label in 1991, and as a result their distributors Priority Records, Sony Music and Time Warner were unable to legally release it onto the market. Around the same time Snoop also recorded some other demos, including a second version of 'Deep Cover', and another collaboration with Dr. Dre on 'Smoke On'. Only six tracks from 'Over he Counter' have ever surfaced online, but if you add those to some other pieces recorded at the same time we end up with an album that could have been released a full two years before his official debut release 'Doggystyle'. Whether it would have catapulted him to stardom like 'Doggystyle' did we'll never know, as those two years honing his craft probably gave that debut album the extra edge that helped it achieve the success that it did. However, it's interesting to be able to listen to these songs that were recorded when he was just starting out, and to hear the emergent talent that has kept him at the top of the rap scene for all these years.    

Track listing

01 Let 'Em Understand (feat. Tha Foesum)

02 Long Beach Is A Muthafucca (feat. Warren G)

03 Do You Remember (feat. George Clinton)

04 187 (It's On) (feat. Lady Of Rage)

05 Playin' 4 Keepz (feat. Tha Convicts)

06 Niggaz Is Like That (feat. Chocolate & CPO)

07 County Bluez 

08 The Message

09 Smoke On (feat. Po', Broke, and Lonely)

10 Dope Slang Symphony (feat. Nate Dogg, Kurupt Tha Kingpin, and Dat Nigga Daz)

11 True To The Game

12 Hoe I Like (feat. Dr. Dre)