Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg go way back, so it comes as no surprise their recollections of the past don’t always align.
On Tuesday (March 19), soon after being honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the veteran producer made an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live and brought Tha Doggfather out to join him.
At one point during the interview, the conversation shifted to the Compton native’s 1992 landmark album The Chronic, which also helped launch his peer’s solo career. Both veterans, however, had entirely different explanations for how the LP’s title was conceived.
“My first time smoking weed,” Dre began. “I was in the car in my driveway and I think we were halfway though the album, and there was a female […] It’s my first time smoking weed, y’know, and I asked what it was and that’s what she told me and boom — here we are.”
Snoop, however, has a different story as he subsequently explained: “Well, let me tell you my story. Me and my homies was in Long Beach, right, and it was a white guy that used to come through the apartments and bring us bud, and he had ‘hydroponic.’
“But we smoked it and started saying ‘hydrochronic’ and flipped it, and then that’s when we started saying, ‘Oh this weed is bomb — it’s the chronic,’ and Dre’s album was so bomb, it only was right for [us] to call it The Chronic.”
Listen to both accounts at the 10:44 mark below:
“Let me tell you something, let me explain something to you right now: Eminem is working on his own album which is coming out this year,” he said.
“And I actually talked to him and he told me it was okay for me to make that announcement right here on this show. So he has an album coming out, I’ve got songs on it and it’s fire. I’m actually gonna hear the entire album for the first time for tomorrow.
He added: “And he holds his music close to his chest so I haven’t heard everything. I haven’t even heard everything complete that I’ve done, but I’m gonna hear it, and he’s putting out an album this year.
“I’m hands on. There’s things that I have to mix that I’ve done, but I get the chance to hear the album in its entirety.”
