Snoop Dogg Says He’s Almost Done With Dr Dre-Produced Album, ‘Missionary’

Snoop Dogg is gearing up to celebrate the 30th anniversary of his 1993 Dr. Dre-produced solo debut album, Doggystyle, with another sure-to-be-epic collaboration. Speaking to Stephen A. Smith on Friday for the ESPN commentator’s Know Mercy podcast, Snoop revealed that “me and Dr. Dre been working on an album for the past two months.”

Snoop said he’s slated to wrap recording on the Dre-helmed album in Nov. adding that the title is Missionary. Smith cheekily asked what inspired the name, with Snoop explaining, “the first album was Doggystyle.” At press time no additional information was available on the album or its potential release date.

When Smith asked Snoop how he came to own his former label, Death Row Records, the rapper explained that in the process of trying to acquire the masters for his debut album the previous owners were charging more for the Doggystyle masters than for the entire label. “I had to ask myself, ‘Do I want the masters now, or do I really want to go back and get that legacy?’,” Snoop said.

So, he hatched a plan to buy the label and then his Doggystyle masters back, which made him think about all the other artists on the label co-founded by imprisoned former CEO Marion “Suge” Knight, inspiring a plan to get all their masters back as well and make sure they get properly paid. “I bought all of those, but then there was one more piece missing,” he said. “The publishing, because you’ve got the masters, but you gotta have the publishing. So I said give me that too.”

Snoop said it costs “a whole lot” to secure all that, but it was worth it. “The legacy of Death Row Records should be one of the most prolific, dominant, business-minded companies to come out of the West Coast that comes and stays with you for a lifetime,” he said. Snoop’s most recent album was this year’s BODR (Bacc on Death Row), which was his third release on his former label and the first after a 26-year gap; his previous release on Death Row was 1996’s Tha Doggfather.

Listen to Snoop on Know Mercy here (Dre talk begins around 34:30 mark).