Still D.R.E.: Waiting On Albums From Andre 3000 And Dr. Dre

Andre 3000 and Dr. Dre won't release albums this calendar year"if ever again. Their perfectionist tendencies create multiple delays, but there's still hope for one more project from each of them.

An interesting video appeared on RollingStone.com in late October. It was a clip of Kendrick Lamar playing “Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe” for Dr. Dre and Andre 3000. Aside from how much talent was in the room, and the clichéd “passing the torch” photo op it provided, I found the clip interesting because both Andres—Young and Benjamin—have become semi-reclusive, mythical Hip Hop icons for what they’ve done and lately what they haven’t done. Namely, they won’t give us the albums we’ve been respectively craving from either of them. Having one or both of them associated with your name and/or project, as Kendrick and Rick Ross have recently managed to do, lends an air of instant credibility. 

Technically, Andre 3000 hasn’t put out a proper studio album as a member of Outkast or as a soloist since 2006. Dr. Dre has taken twice as long as that by not releasing a solo album since 1999. I’d love to be wrong about this, but I seriously doubt that Andre 3000 or Dr. Dre will release an album in 2013—if ever again. During their rare interviews, they give various reasons why it’s taken them so long to complete new projects. Maybe we as fans should be asking some other questions. Setting aside our own selfish desire for potentially great songs, what personal reasons do either Three Stacks or Dr. Dre have for putting out full albums anymore?

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Alwayz Into Somethin’

“I ain’t havin’ that / This is the millennium of Aftermath / It ain’t gone be nothin’ after that / So give me one more platinum plaque / And fuck Rap you can have it back…” –Dr. Dre, “Forgot About Dre.”


It’s almost scary how prophetic the above bars from Dr. Dre sound if you look back at them nearly 13 years after they were recorded. Like most people, I don’t assume Dre was being literal when he rhymed that verse. But even as his 2001, album was being recorded, Dre was putting himself in position to make a ridiculous amount of money from residual royalties associated with the Aftermath catalogue. We know what happened next. Eminem made two visits to the rare “diamond club” by moving over 10 million copies domestically of both The Marshall Mathers LP and The Eminem Show. Later, 50 Cent would sell 6 million copies of Get Rich Or Die Tryin’ and another 5 million of The Massacre domestically.

Then, just for good measure, Dre and Jimmy Iovine co-created Beats Electronics and subsequently sold a 51% stake in the company to HTC for $300 million before buying back a majority share in the company. It may not have been “the millennium of Aftermath” it was damn sure the decade of Aftermath. Simply put, Dr. Dre makes more from his business ventures and his back catalogue than he ever will from putting out any new music. There’s no financial incentive for Dre to release Detox.