Snoop Dogg (left) and Dr. Dre perform in Hawaii for Los Angeles radio station Power 106’s Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg reunion concert in September 1999.
BY 1999, RANDOM ACTS OF VIOLENCE, WALL STREET, AND THE BUSINESS OF WAR WERE FLOURISHING.
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold shot and killed thirteen people and injured twenty-four others before committing suicide at Columbine High School in Colorado, shocking suburban America and bringing awareness to modern-day school massacres. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above ten thousand for the first time, signaling the United States’ economic might on both domestic and global levels. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) launched air strikes against Yugoslavia, marking the first time NATO had attacked a sovereign country.
At the same time, gangster rap had just completed its first decade of dominance, one marked by the explosion of the subgenre thanks to the massive commercial success of Ice-T, Eazy-E, N.W.A, Ice Cube, the Geto Boys, Compton’s Most Wanted, DJ Quik, Cypress Hill, Scarface, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Warren G, E-40, Mack 10, Westside Connection, and Master P, among others. The genre’s success spilled over to the box office with such films as New Jack City, Boyz N the Hood, and Menace II Society, blockbuster movies that starred rappers and focused on the drugs, guns, violence, and socioeconomic conditions gangster rappers covered in their music.
TIMELINE OF RAP
1999
Key Rap Releases
1. Dr. Dre’s 2001 album
2. Eminem’s The Slim Shady LP album
3. Snoop Dogg’s No Limit Top Dogg album
US President
Bill Clinton
Something Else
Bill Clinton is acquitted by the Senate in his impeachment trial.
Yet things had been largely quiet on the gangster rap front in Los Angeles, especially when compared to the artistic and commercial explosion enjoyed there in the early nineties. The specters of 2Pac’s and the Notorious B.I.G.’s murders still loomed large, and the emergence of new gangster rappers from Southern California was becoming increasingly rare. Meanwhile, Master P and his No Limit Records had been dominating the rap industry for the past few years, helping spread Southern gangster rap music. Furthermore, two of the subgenre’s biggest artists were rebounding from projects that weren’t as well-received as much of their earlier work had been.
After leaving Death Row Records, Dr. Dre released The Aftermath compilation (in conjunction with Columbia Records) on November 26, 1996. It also marked the official launch of Dr. Dre’s new Aftermath Entertainment company, which was distributed by Interscope Records, the label owned and operated by music executive Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre’s home since the release of 1992’s The Chronic.
While The Aftermath sold more than one million copies, it took ten months to strike platinum. It was evident that fans did not embrace the Compton rapper-producer’s first project on his new imprint the same way they had his previous albums. The album was anchored by the single “Been There, Done That,” which featured Dr. Dre boasting of his wealth, trumpeting his woman for being a breadwinner, and celebrating being true to oneself. Many fans, though, took Dr. Dre’s musical and lyrical stance as one distancing himself from gangster rap, the genre for which he had provided the most significant, popular, and influential tracks to date.
Dr. Dre’s next project was also met with commercial success by most standards, but it fell short of what most fans expected from him creatively. In October 1997, Nas, Foxy Brown, AZ, and Nature combined to create the supergroup the Firm, whose The Album was produced by Dr. Dre and New York production duo the Trackmasters and was released by Dr. Dre’s Aftermath Entertainment.
Despite the star power of the ultrarespected Nas and Foxy Brown and the production prowess of Dr. Dre and the Trackmasters (who helmed Nas’s “If I Ruled the World [Imagine That],” among other hits), the project failed to resonate with either Dr. Dre’s gangster rap fan base or Nas’s New York–based, adamantly lyric-hungry followers. Other than the hit “Phone Tap,” the project was seemingly done in by the overtly mafioso-themed songs, which alienated many of Nas’s die-hard fans, and the beats, which vacillated between ultrapopish and sinister and didn’t end up appealing to either Dr. Dre’s core gangster audience or the Trackmasters’ more pop-friendly sound. It was an album with an identity crisis. Even though the project moved more than one million units, it was not well-received, and the Firm was no more.
As Dr. Dre was searching for his post–Death Row footing, former protégé Snoop Dogg rebounded nicely when he signed with Master P’s No Limit Records and released the double-platinum Da Game Is to Be Sold, Not to Be Told in 1998. Like Dr. Dre, though, Snoop Dogg’s first foray with No Limit was commercially successful but not embraced critically. Nonetheless, the marriage proved beneficial to both Snoop Dogg and No Limit.
“I was enjoying success because No Limit was like the hottest in the street rap and gangster rap,” Snoop Dogg said. “It was the same lane, just with Southern rap. At the time, it solidified me as being a real artist that could stand the test of time and they were looked at as a real label now because they had superstars they had built from the ground [up] and they had a solidified superstar in Snoop Dogg and they handled me right. They gave me a great record, movies. They got my spirit back right, the spirit of using my pen as my sword.”
Snoop Dogg’s comeback came full circle with 1999’s No Limit Top Dogg, the album that reunited him with Dr. Dre as a producer for the songs “B Please,” “Just Dippin’,” and “Buck ’Em.” With No Limit’s success and his new material with Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg had become firmly established as one of rap’s most bankable stars, regardless of who was backing him.
“When me and Dre got back together again, I was sharper than ever because I still was hot,” Snoop Dogg said. “I was with the hottest label in the industry. I went from Death Row to No Limit. That was like going from the Miami Heat to the Cleveland Cavaliers when LeBron [James] did. I was still in the championship mode, still in championship spirit, and still winning.”
At the same time, Dr. Dre had received a creative jolt by signing Eminem. Dr. Dre’s union with Eminem came at a critical time for the producer. It followed two albums that were not well-received (1996’s The Aftermath compilation and 1997’s The Album) and was a major career risk for Dr. Dre. After all, he was aligning himself with a white rapper. Dr. Dre showed that, yet again, his instincts were right. His first project with Eminem was the quadruple-platinum The Slim Shady LP, which was released in February 1999.
Dr. Dre also welcomed the D.O.C., one of his most valuable Ruthless Records and Death Row Records collaborators, back to his creative circle. Consequently, as Dr. Dre began working on his second studio album, his collaborative energy with Snoop Dogg and the rest of his team was peaking.
“It was great for me to have my spirit right when I got back with Dre, because by that time, he had discovered Eminem and he really had a few things going for himself that he was feeling good,” Snoop Dogg said. “I had Dre participating on a couple of my No Limit records, which put us back in the groove before we actually got to his groove. It was getting him back into his groove, and then keeping me on point so that once I got back with him, I knew that he would be the best for me, as far as taking me to a level that No Limit couldn’t take me to musically, because he was the best producer in the world for Snoop Dogg.”
As would become a hallmark later in his career, Dr. Dre used time to his advantage. With a dedicated partner in Jimmy Iovine, he was free to create on his own terms and at his own pace. The resulting project was Dr. Dre’s second studio album, 1999’s 2001.
“I could have put a lot of records out just to make some money,” Dr. Dre said. “But I’m trying to create a new thing, and it doesn’t happen overnight. Plus, there were a lot of people out there that were real hot. I wanted to let that simmer down for a minute, and then just hit them with this new shit that I’ve got coming.”
Snoop Dogg called friend Devin the Dude, a Houston rapper-singer who appeared on 2001 selection “Fuck You.” Once Snoop Dogg started reaching out to artists, he noticed an elevated level of excitement surrounding Dr. Dre’s project.
“They all wanted to work with Dre, so it was like they would never say no to Dre and they already were my friends,” Snoop Dogg said, “so it was a perfect culmination of all of those periods and that music and that vibe and the attitude.”
For his part, Dr. Dre felt as though he had nothing to prove with 2001. But unlike when he left Ruthless Records and Death Row Records at their commercial heights, Dr. Dre was coming off a seven-year break between studio albums and the wake of two projects that were greeted less than enthusiastically by consumers and critics alike, a first for him. He used the criticism he’d heard regarding The Aftermath compilation and the Firm’s album to fuel such selections as “The Watcher,” “Still D.R.E.,” “What’s the Difference,” and “Forgot About Dre.”
“I think a lot of people out there on the street are like, ‘Okay, well, Dre fell off,’” Dr. Dre said. “But I’ve been through this same situation before with the doubters when I left Ruthless. Right before I did The Chronic, everybody was saying the same shit. It really doesn’t mean anything to me. It’s just motivation.”
After working with Dr. Dre on The Aftermath compilation and the Firm’s album, as well as producing Xzibit’s “Los Angeles Times” single, Mel-Man emerged as one of rap’s most prominent beatsmiths in 1999. He produced Eminem’s “Role Model” with Dr. Dre and produced (with Dr. Dre) his 2001 album. Subsequent work with Ice Cube (“Hello”), Eminem (“The Real Slim Shady,” “Kill You,” and “Who Knew,” among others), and Xzibit (“X,” “Get Your Walk On”) made the Pittsburgh musician one of the most successful producers of 1999 and 2000.
Whereas The Aftermath compilation and the Firm album confounded Dr. Dre’s supporters, they returned en masse for 2001. Cowritten by JAY-Z, the lead single, “Still D.R.E.,” featured Snoop Dogg on the chorus and Dr. Dre rhyming about his steadfast loyalty to weed, making music, and the streets, as well as his disdain for law enforcement. It was almost as if Dr. Dre had hit the reset button on his career.
The appearance of Eminem on “What’s the Difference” (which also features Xzibit) and “Forgot About Dre” brought another audience to the album, fans who were smitten with the white rapper from Detroit and who may or may not have been familiar with Dr. Dre’s groundbreaking work with N.W.A, Eazy-E, the D.O.C., and Snoop Dogg, among others.
Regardless, thanks to Dr. Dre’s return to his gangster rap roots, Eminem’s surging popularity, and the overall explosion of the sales of CDs, 2001 sold more than two million copies in less than two months. It moved another one million copies as its three-month anniversary arrived. 2001 had sold three million units in three months, while The Aftermath needed nearly ten months to move one million copies.
With 2001, Dr. Dre had proven that his star was rising rather than waning. Subsequent single “The Next Episode” with Snoop Dogg, Kurupt, and Nate Dogg recaptured the Death Row magic. Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg each handled a verse, Kurupt did ad libs, and Nate Dogg sang the outro. The skillful mixture of the various artists’ talents demonstrated Dr. Dre’s range as an artist and producer.
“Still D.R.E.” was a menacing ode to his virtuosity, while the up-tempo, crossover “Forgot About Dre” teamed him with Eminem for an homage to Dr. Dre’s ability to endure as an artist, and the sonically slinky “The Next Episode” marked a rebirth of gangster rap, one that didn’t rely on funk samples in order to succeed. Instead, these three singles showed that Dr. Dre was a musical master, one whose sonic reach was ever expanding and evolving.
In fact, even songs that did not receive accompanying videos became huge underground hits, as had been the case with The Chronic’s “Bitches Ain’t Shit” and Doggystyle’s “Aint No Fun (If The Homies Cant Have None).” 2001 track “Xxplosive” (featuring Hittman, Kurupt, Nate Dogg, and Six-Two) got regular burn on Los Angeles radio, while “Some L.A. Niggaz” (featuring Hittman, Defari, Xzibit, Knoc-Turn’al, Time Bomb, King T, MC Ren, and Kokane) was a street favorite that earned more radio play as time passed. Dr. Dre’s “What’s the Difference” with Eminem and Xzibit also became a fan favorite thanks to the three rappers’ individual imaginative takes on how they were different from their detractors.
As June 2000 arrived, 2001 had sold more than four million copies, but Dr. Dre was about to spearhead something arguably more significant. Since its inception, rap had had a history of being a poor concert draw. Substandard sound, limited stage production, small crowds, and violence among the attendees made concert bookers wary of committing to large-scale rap tours.
“You’re goddamn right we couldn’t tour,” DJ Quik said. “We were getting shot up every fuckin’ night.”
There were notable exceptions, of course, namely the Fresh Fest series of tours that launched with Run-DMC, Whodini, the Fat Boys, and Kurtis Blow in 1984, as well as such successful one-off outings as Public Enemy’s Fear of a Black Planet Tour with Digital Underground, Kid ’n Play, Heavy D & the Boyz, and Chill Rob G in 1990. These tours played arenas of varying size, but having successful events every few years made it seem that rap was decidedly second to rock in concert appeal.
It wasn’t until 1999, when JAY-Z spearheaded the Hard Knock Life Tour with DMX, Redman, and Method Man, that rappers started erasing the negative perception of rap tours. JAY-Z and DMX, in particular, were hitting the road while enjoying major success, with JAY-Z’s 1998 album, Vol. 2… Hard Knock Life, selling more than four million copies. For his part, in 1998, DMX became the first artist in music history to have his first two albums (It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot and Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood) be released in the same year and both debut as the No. 1 album in the country.
JAY-Z and DMX were two of the biggest acts in all of music in 1998 and 1999, so, in many ways, the short-term future of the rap tour hinged on what happened with JAY-Z’s forty-seven-date Hard Knock Life Tour. It went off without a hitch, packing at-capacity crowds at nearly every stop and demonstrating that rap could equal rock’s success, take place across the country without incident, and generate sellout crowds at arenas.
The success of the Hard Knock Life Tour was a boon to the Dr. Dre–fronted Up in Smoke Tour, which kicked off on June 15, 2000, at the Coors Amphitheatre in Chula Vista, California, just south of San Diego. With Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, and Eminem also serving as headliners and Nate Dogg, Kurupt, Mack 10, Warren G, WC, Xzibit, Tha Eastsidaz, Jayo Felony, and others also appearing on the tour, it was the first legitimate gangster rap tour. When N.W.A and Ice-T, for instance, would tour, they would often share the bill with such non-gangster rap acts as De La Soul and Public Enemy. By contrast, the Up in Smoke Tour was an exclusively gangster rap event, other than Eminem.
The Up in Smoke Tour also arrived at a point when, thanks in large part to Snoop Dogg’s resurgence, Dr. Dre’s return, and Ice Cube’s cultural cachet, Los Angeles–area gangster rap was again ascending and was shedding the baggage it had accumulated because of the deaths of 2Pac and the Notorious B.I.G., as well as the dissolution of Death Row Records.
“It was very significant,” MC Eiht said. “We needed that tour as far as to save face for the West Coast with all the negativity we was gettin’, Dre with Death Row, Snoop with Death Row. Then with all the people saying we couldn’t sell music anymore and that nobody wanted to listen to our type of music and that’s why we were falling off and everybody was gravitating to Down South and the East Coast again. It just showed that we still had significant fans. We still were putting out good product, and it basically saved face for the West, because it brought a lot of dudes together to come and push this West Coast music.”
The four headliners of the Up in Smoke Tour had successful albums out while the tour was in progress. Here’s a snapshot of each project.
DR. DRE’S 2001
Released November 16, 1999. Notable singles: “Still D.R.E.,” “Forgot About Dre,” and “The Next Episode.” Certified six-times platinum November 21, 2000.
SNOOP DOGG’S NO LIMIT TOP DOGG
Released May 11, 1999. Notable singles: “B Please,” with Xzibit, and “Down 4 My N’s.” Certified platinum October 13, 1999.
EMINEM’S THE MARSHALL MATHERS LP
Released May 23, 2000. Notable singles: “The Real Slim Shady,” “The Way I Am,” and “Stan,” featuring Dido. Certified ten-times platinum March 9, 2011.
ICE CUBE’S WAR & PEACE VOLUME 2 (THE PEACE DISC)
Released March 21, 2000. Notable single: “You Can Do It.” Certified gold May 31, 2000.
Snoop Dogg’s reunion with Dr. Dre paid dividends for more than just the former Death Row Records labelmates. Xzibit’s career also got a jolt thanks to his appearance on “B Please” (more commonly known as “Bitch Please”), a single from Snoop Dogg’s platinum 1999 album, No Limit Top Dogg.
Prior to that, Xzibit had released two acclaimed albums, worked extensively with King Tee and Sir Jinx, and had become one of rap’s most respected artists. Then he got a life-changing call from Snoop Dogg.
“He said he wanted to get me on the record and that Dre had the beat, and so he wanted me to meet him at the studio, at Echo Sound in the back room,” Xzibit said. “It was scheduled for that day. I remember walking in. It was my first time in there with Dre. I was like, ‘Yeah!’ He played the beat. I wrote my verse in like 15 minutes, laid it, thanked him for the opportunity, and left. Then Snoop got on it. He called me and was like, ‘Yeah. You did that, playboy.’”
Xzibit didn’t know what the song would become, but he was ecstatic with the next “B Please” update.
“I get a call like, ‘Yo, that’s the next single off the No Limit Top Dogg album,’” Xzibit said. “I was like, ‘Word?’ I had put records out with other artists, but that was the first time it was being used as a single, especially with the big boys. It changed my life because all of a sudden, I’m here rapping alongside Snoop Dogg, one of the vanguards of our coast. It happened very quickly, and the change and reaction was immediate. I could tell, literally, that shit had changed overnight. I was on MTV rotation and I couldn’t get MTV to play anything with the letter ‘x’ in it before that, let alone play my shit. It was just fantastic. Full rotation. Countdowns. Touring. And, that led to Dre’s taking interest in me, working with me on his [2001] album. ‘What’s The Difference’ came out of that. Working with Eminem on his records. Working with Snoop Dogg again. Going on the Up In Smoke Tour. All of that came from doing that record. ‘Bitch Please’ changed my life in a major way.”
The forty-five-date Up in Smoke Tour hit arenas in major cities such as Houston; Philadelphia; Atlanta; Dallas; Washington, DC; and Detroit, as well as two shows in the Los Angeles area. Almost all the shows sold out, and like the Hard Knock Life Tour before it, the Up in Smoke Tour took place without incident, dispelling the myth that gangster rap concerts were synonymous with violence.
Snoop Dogg, in particular, remembers the familial atmosphere he felt throughout the tour, as well as Dr. Dre’s professionalism in coordinating all aspects of the tour, from the movie he showed at the onset of his and Snoop’s joint set to the layout of the entire production. The tour featured a rotating cast of collaborators such as Nate Dogg, Kurupt, and Daz Dillinger, who each joined Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg to deliver renditions of their own material.
“One thing about us, we always get classified for being violent, or making others act in a violent manner,” Snoop Dogg said. “But if you really look at what we do, we’re the most peaceful people in the world when it comes to making music, because we’re the only ones that can get gangbangers, white people, Asian people, people from all over the world to come together and stand in a concert and rock to the rhythm of the groove and not want to fight each other and not have issues with each other based on the music and the memories that we give them. So, I pay no attention to that, and I know that when we do what we do, we’re healing the world with the music we make, even if it is gangster music. It’s bringing these types of people together that would never have been in the same room together and they’re singing together and rocking together. Before you know it, they became friends and realized that a gangster and a hippie’s the same people. We just grew up different.”
Xzibit (left) and Lord Finesse on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, California, in November 1998.
The Up in Smoke Tour concluded at the Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre outside of Denver on August 20, 2000. Four months later, the tour was immortalized with the DVD The Up in Smoke Tour, a two-hour concert film that captured many of the jaunt’s best performances, as well as the feel-good energy of the tour.
“I think it brought [gangster rap] to mainstream America,” Dave Weiner said. “I missed that tour and I regret missing that tour in person, but I can tell you I watched that DVD fifty times and with chills head to toe. It documented a magical point, and it was a successful, well-run, brilliantly executed tour, which, at that level, hadn’t happened with rap music and hip-hop. The success of the DVD, the tour, the amount of people that came together on stage, from different backgrounds and different sets—and Eminem being an enormous part of launching rap into the next stratosphere of mainstream music—it was like the door was officially kicked in, man.”
Like the tour, the DVD The Up in Smoke Tour was extremely successful, certified six-times platinum after selling six hundred thousand units.
Xzibit also reaped the benefits of the Up in Smoke Tour. The aggressive rapper, who rose to prominence as a member of lighthearted rap posse the Likwit Crew (King Tee, Tha Alkaholiks), used his work with Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre on “B Please” and his time on the tour to perform in front of hundreds of thousands of new fans and to catapult himself into superstardom and into the gangster rap world. Buoyed by Dr. Dre’s production and collaborations with Snoop Dogg, Eminem, and others, Xzibit’s third album, Restless, was released on December 12, 2000. It sold more than one million copies in six weeks thanks to such muscular singles as “X” and “Front 2 Back.”
Major rap tours were rare prior to the Up in Smoke Tour. Here’s a look at some of the most significant ones.
Fresh Festival (1984). Also known as the Fresh Fest and the Fresh Tour, it featured the Fat Boys, Whodini, Kurtis Blow, and Run-DMC in its initial run in 1984 and the same acts, as well as Grandmaster Flash, in 1985. Both editions of the tour also featured breakdancing. The relaunched FM edition of Los Angeles radio station KDAY started throwing its own Fresh Fest in the 2010s. The lineups are made of mostly West Coast acts, often including such gangster rappers as DJ Quik, E-40, and Kurupt.
Def Jam (1987). LL Cool J headlined this early rap outing, which also featured labelmates Public Enemy. Eric B. & Rakim were also on the bill, even though they were signed to 4th & B’way/Island Records at the time, not Def Jam. The Long Island, New York, duo was managed by Rush Artist Management, though, which was Russell Simmons’s management company.
No Way Out (1997). As the rap world mourned the loss of the Notorious B.I.G., mentor Puff Daddy (as P. Diddy was known at the time) launched the No Way Out Tour, which was named after the Puff Daddy & The Family album that was released less than four months after Biggie’s murder. The tour featured Bad Boy Entertainment acts and collaborators, including Lil’ Kim and Foxy Brown.
Hard Knock Life (1999). JAY-Z connected with his Def Jam Recordings labelmates DMX, Redman, and Method Man for a hugely successful national arena tour that reinvigorated the rap tour. While on the road, the Columbine school shooting took place. The rappers donated the proceeds from their Denver show, which took place a week after the April 20 massacre, to the families of the victims. “We’ve known firsthand how pointless and senseless violence always is,” JAY-Z said, “and we wanted to show our support in a real way.”
“I got brought into a situation where I just stayed myself with Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, and all of them,” Xzibit said. “I didn’t start rapping like any of them. I brought my own flavor to the table.”
Established acts also built on the momentum the Up in Smoke Tour provided. With his career back in overdrive thanks to his deal with Master P at No Limit Records as well as his reunion with mentor Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg wrapped the tour, and on December 19, 2000, he delivered his third and final No Limit album, Tha Last Meal. The skeletal, explosive Dr. Dre–produced single “Lay Low” featured Master P, Nate Dogg, protégés Tha Eastsidaz (whose platinum debut album Snoop Dogg released on his Dogghouse Records in February 2000), and singer Butch Cassidy, while the somber, laid-back “Wrong Idea” featured Kokane, Bad Azz, and Lil 1/2 Dead. The platinum-selling Tha Last Meal cemented Snoop Dogg’s reign as one of rap’s biggest stars and the West Coast’s most prolific and consistently celebrated rapper of the era.
“I had proclaimed myself as the King of the West Coast, so I had to prove it,” Snoop Dogg said. “I said it before it was actually proven. I had work to do, and that’s part of my incline to get to where I am. When I looked at the great Kobe Bryant, Muhammad Ali, Magic Johnson, the people I aspire to be, I look at how they went on their runs. Their runs were consecutive and it didn’t matter. They just kept running, kept doing what they did best, and that’s what I was on, trying to stay on my run. So when I got a Shaquille O’Neal, a Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, or a championship-caliber player like Dre to play alongside me, it made my job easy, to where I just had to do what I do and he was going to do what he do and it came together to become something that was special and timeless.”
With Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg recording together again and having completed headlining stints on the most successful tour in gangster rap history, they helped usher in the next two gangster rap superstars, with Dr. Dre taking the lead and Snoop Dogg giving them the stamp of approval in songs, on stage, and in the media.