Following Dr. Dre’s performance at the Super Bowl Halftime Show, boosted his 2001 hit single “Still D.R.E.” to over a billion views on YouTube.
Dre and Snoop performed the track as part of their Halftime set, and a video went viral showing JAY-Z who wrote the track rapping along as the pair performed it.
“On that reference track, I’m doing Dre and Snoop’s vocals,” JAY-Z recalled while a guest on LeBron James HBO series The Shop in 2021. “The reference track it sounds like them. The Foxy [Brown] reference I’m glad nobody can find that one. But you gotta have somewhat a reverence for them. In order for me to really nail the essence of Dre and Snoop had to be like a studied reverence of what they were doing. Even to put myself in their shoes. Cause think about that record. That record comes after Dre leaves Death Row, ‘How? My last album was The Chronic.”
2001 would become Dre’s best-selling record, going 6x platinum.
“That particular record, I was really going bass-heavy with it, but trying to keep the mids and the tops right,” Dre said. “But still trying to make sure it sounded, like, some gritty shit. You know what it is trying to get that balance. A lot of times, at least back then, I was mixing the vocals a little bit too loud because it’s a little trick you learn along the way, once you get into mastering, if you want to add bass to your shit the vocals come down.”
“Still D.R.E.” has joined the ranks of Wiz Khalifa and Drake and Future’s newly crowned 2 billion track “Life Is Good.”