“Deep Cover” by the artist Dr. Dre & Snoop Dogg. The cover art: Epic Records/SOLAR Records
There are twenty-five years, Dr. Dre, who aims to bring the 2024 Olympic Games to Los Angeles dropped his first solo song, “Deep Cover”, also known as “187.” The song, which appeared on the soundtrack of Laurence Fishburne and Jeff Goldblum film “Deep Cover”, was the first version by Dre post-N.W.A. and was a perfect fit for the future of the now legendary “Death Row Records”.
“Deep cover” album reached # 166 on the Billboard 200, which is far below the success Dre has achieved with Eazy-E, Ice Cube, MC Ren and DJ Yella. However, the record established Dre as a breakout artist and introduced the world to Snoop Doggy Dogg – who last week helped induct 2Pac in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
The chemistry of Snoop and Dr. Dre is undeniable, and the song is about to be the only lead of the now classic LP “The chronic”, which has since gone three-time platinum. That all changed, however, after seeing the blow-back that Ice-T’s group Body Count received from their aptly titled “Cop Killer”. They wisely thought it was best to cut the song from the album. The lead single “Nuthin’ But A ‘G’ Thang” set Dre, Snoop and Death Row to a new level, and changed the direction of West Coast rap.
In 2015, Snoop and Dre repeated the making of “Deep Cover”, on Dre’s own Beats 1 radio show, The Pharmacy.
“We will be partying for some time, we’d go in the studio. I had a makeshift studio in my bedroom and came Snoop and the song just happened, “shared Dre.” And we made the song before we knew it would be part of the film “Deep Cover “.
The Doc told Snoop to have a verse ready, but The Dogg didn’t quite grasp the urgency. “It was crazy, because I remember that he just gave me the first line,” said Snoop.
Today, 25 years after its initial release – it is still “187 on an undercover cop. The song holds up and reigns as one of the typical examples of “gangsta rap,” and its storyline has inspired countless others. The most notable is that Big Pun and Fat Joe remake of the songs on the platinum debut album Capital Punishment. Snoop made a brief appearance in the video – in case you forgot.
When it comes to dropping hard-ass bars, “Deep Cover” is an instrumental of choice and a main anthem of ’90s West Coast tough-guy-ism.
This story first appeared in HipHopDx
