Album Cover via Snoop Dogg/Instagram
Evan Nabavian‘s YouTube algorithm is chaotic good.
Snoop Dogg first revealed the existence of Missionary on Stephen A. Smith’s podcast in 2022. He said (and I’m paraphrasing) that he and Dre had cemented their legacies many times over: Snoop’s contributions to the metaverse, Snoop’s VH1 cooking show with Martha Stewart, Dre’s decade-long tease of Detox that culminated in a Dr. Pepper commercial, Dre’s numerous late-era collaborations with Skylar Grey, et cetera. But even so, they had never given their seminal work a proper follow-up, so Snoop announced that they would finally retread sacred ground. They were making a sequel to Doggystyle. I immediately recognized the importance of this moment and I got to work. I forged some press credentials (apologies to Elliott Wilson) and I set about interviewing the authors of Missionary. What follows is the making of the album from the people who were there.
Snoop Dogg: Me and Dre have gotten our flowers, established our empires. We didn’t owe people nothing, we didn’t have nothing to prove. But we were kicking it one day, and we had so many ideas about Fortnite soundtracks that we knew it was finally time to write our next chapter. Missionary was a natural extension, a perfect expression of who we are and what we do – just like “Gin & Juice By Dre and Snoop,” the first ready to drink product from our new premium spirits and NFT company.
Jimmy Iovine: When I heard they were thinking about doing another one, I got Dre on the phone immediately and pressed him on it. I told Dre, “You and Snoop – You guys made your New Hope but you never made your Rise of Skywalker. You guys made your Ready to Die, but you never made your Duets: The Final Chapter, your fans need- no, they deserve this branded and highly streamable content adventure.”
Dr. Dre: Look, Apple stock is at $250 and I came in at $25. You do the math. I made more money off the Kim Kardashian Beats than I did off my entire pre-Eminem catalog. So I only get out of bed if you’re adding a zero to my net worth or if it’s a little treat, like getting to go up onstage at the Grammys and stunt on Dee Barnes. You don’t have to make a sequel to Doggystyle. But Jimmy said if I did this I’d get my own Lego biopic.
Tim Cook, CEO of Apple: WIth all due respect to Andre and Calvin, this was my vision. I assembled the team. Who do you think came up with the title? I told the guys this would be the first truly universal rap album. No localized nonsense about Inglewood, swap meets, sticky green, and bad traffic. I told them to make an album whose appeal could span generations and demographics. Did you ever wonder what Epcot Center would sound like as a rap album. Look at your phone right now, Missionary is this generation’s Songs of Innocence. That’s not Dre or Snoop, it’s the motherfucking T.C. Baby.
DJ Battlecat: They called me in on the first day. I brought a Whispers record and my synthesizer and I put together a track that sounded like a modern Eastsidaz record. Dre listened to it between kipping pull up reps and said it wasn’t the direction he wanted to go in. Then he started singing the chorus from “Thank You” and threw his Lacroix at an intern who quickly stitched the track. RBX wrote Snoop’s verses after he picked up Dre’s dry cleaning. The invoice for the reimbursement is now 90 days late.
Fat Money: I’ve been Dre’s HGH plug since 2017. Me and Stalone got verses on “Gangsta Pose” as a reward for catching Stat Quo trying to sneak into the studio through the fire escape when I was making a sale during a session.
Snoop Dogg: “Pressure” was a joint we were sitting on for a long time. Dre luckily found the DAT in a crate of Truth Hurts cassingles. We originally made it for a Mitsubishi Outlander commercial I did with Anna Kendrick that never aired.
The D.O.C.: Listen, I’ve been doing this since the 80s. I’ve been around everybody. Dre and Snoop showed me the world. So I don’t get starstruck. But Sting? “Every Breath You Take” and “Message in a Bottle?” C’mon, man. I was at the studio when he pulled up in a peach colored Cybertruck. Then he smoked some of that Hindu Kush with Snoop and Method Man and started teaching everyone in the room the secrets of the tantra. Slim the Mobster had to coax him out of the studio’s crawl space to lay down his vocals.
Tim Cook: I needed Snoop to quit kvetching about not having a Grammy, so I prompted Apple Intelligence to package Snoop Dogg’s most identifiable and brand-safe characteristics into a song that will appeal to Grammy voters and people who only know Snoop from NBC’s The Voice – and boom, acoustic collab with Jelly Roll. Easy shit. Grammy by algorithm, which was actually a spitballed alternate name for the album. Just wait until February. You heard me, Sam Altman.
Jelly Roll: Kurupt kept asking me if I was from Boo-Yaa Tribe.
Martha Stewart: I came through and made everyone a smoked salmon and dill quiche. Then I freestyled for 18 minutes, and followed it up by showing some Eastside Long Beach Crips how to make napkin swans with their blue rags. It was a perfectly divine evening until Lil Half Dead tried to put his dick on my head.
Big Tray Dee: The Olympics were cool. Fun fact: Mike Tirico knows all the words to my verse on “G’d Up.”
Xzibit: Don’t talk to me about “ghost-producers.” Dre is singular as a producer because he can see things no one else can see. We don’t take anything away from Andy Warhol for having Gerard Malanga apply ink to canvases for him and we can’t take anything away from Dre for disappearing mid-production for five weeks and sending notes to the studio via his attorney. When you made “Deeez Nuuuts,” you can do what the fuck you want.
Dr. Dre: I told Xzibit I wanted him to do “Bitch Please Part 3” with Eminem. I made him come to the studio at 6AM and wait around all day until I FaceTimed him and said we had to scrap it because Em got a call to do a verse for P!nk. Then I asked him if he could pimp my ride. The look on his face made all of this worth it.
50 Cent: Alright, so I hear Scott Storch is going to be in the studio to play keys or whatever, right? So I tell Tony Yayo to go out and get me a Ziploc bag full of crushed up white sprinkles – only white ones. Then I go over to Scott and I say, “Yo Scott, call Game and tell him that Dre wants him for Missionary. Say Dre wants him to do Jewell’s verse from the end of The Chronic. The one where she says, ‘When I’m on the dick, I get real mean.’” And Scott laughs and says, “Come On Fif.” And then I slowly pull the Ziploc an inch out of my pocket. Yo, this motherfucker’s eyes doubled in size.
Eminem: There’s another version of “Gunz N Smoke” where I rapped in the accent from “Ass Like That.” I feel like people never really appreciated what I was trying to do with that.
Snoop Dogg: I knew we could do something bigger than we had ever done before, even bigger than my campaign with Patrick Mahomes for T-Mobile, where you can get the new iPhone 16 Pro for free and families save 20% every month.
Ari Emanuel, Co-Founder of William Morris Endeavor: I was there when Snoop Dogg signed on to do that commercial for erectile dysfunction meds. We brought that idea to all of our A-listers and everyone turned it down. I mean, who wants their name next to ED medicine, right? We were about to toss it when someone on the team suggested we try Snoop Dogg. So we had the meeting with Snoop and he didn’t even blink. He cut us off halfway through the pitch and signed on the spot. That night, I ended up locking myself in the bathroom and drinking a handle of vodka in my bathtub. I mean, we got the guy who made “Ain’t No Fun” to shill dick pills.
Kendrick Lamar: I gave these guys three days of my time. Three whole ass days. On the first day, Snoop made us all watch every episode of Doggy Fizzle Televizzle, which was better than you remember. On the second day, Dre was out of pocket because he had meetings with his cryogenics people. On the third day, I had to break up a fight between Mel-Man and Hittman who both wanted Dre’s ticket to the Golden Globes. And then like two hours before my flight, they had me record a verse to a track called “Rest in Piss Tim Dog” for the deluxe version. It’s going to be an Amazon exclusive.
Warren G: Pause the video for “The Next Episode” at 1:20. That’s an amazing ass. More asses should look like that.
Jimmy Iovine: I’ll be honest, the prospects for another Up In Smoke Tour are dicy. Snoop insists that the tour be “on the blockchain” and when I ask him to elaborate, he tells me to talk to Kokane. And Dre told me he’s only interested if I can find all the guys from Blackstreet so they can do “No Diggity,” though I think he might just be busting my balls. Meanwhile, I’m getting tired of avoiding Game’s phone calls.
Kurupt: Dre and Snoop played me the album after they finished it. I’m starting to think Tipper Gore was right.
Snoop Dogg: We beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. For a moment, you’re 22 years old with vision that can change the world and the talent to execute it. The next you’re America’s stoned uncle. And sure the money is great and sex is fun and fame has its perks, but it’s really love. What you become addicted to is love, you start to see relevance and love as the same thing, and your vision slowly dims and your talent slowly fades and you are desperately trying to cling to both for as long as you can with the little time you have left. And that’s why it’s so important to grab a pair of my latest collaboration with Sketchers. The Gold Medal Snoops will help you believe the lie that you can in fact defy the relentless passage of time, and hold onto the world’s love forever.
