2001

After months of highly productive studio sessions with an unpolished but focused 26-year-old Marshall Mathers, Aftermath released Eminem‰۪s debut, The Slim Shady LP, on February 23, 1999. The album shocked listeners across the world and went four times platinum. It made Eminem a superstar, gave Aftermath its first hit, and, more subtly, marked the start of Dre‰۪s new sound. Gone were the sticky, warbly bass lines, big drums, and hypnotic stank of G-funk. What emerged instead was West Coast rap stripped down to its basic components, stretched and slowed and narrowed with ominous, sparse precision. SSLP‰۪s ‰ÛÏRole Model‰۝ is 2001‰۪s most obvious precursor, and it‰۪s the only track on the album that Dre coproduced with a young upstart from Virginia named Mel-Man, who would be instrumental in 2001. Around the same time, Dre and Snoop reconciled. No Limit Top Dogg, Snoop‰۪s fourth album and second for No Limit, released on May 11, 1999, featured his first collaborations with Dre in nearly five years. The Dre-produced ‰ÛÏBuck ‰۪Em,‰۝ with its alien synths and Kill Bill‰ÛÒstyle guitars, is proto-2001, and the Xzibit-featuring, Dre-laced posse-cut ‰ÛÏBitch Please‰۝ got the gang back together again. Armed with a new superstar, a new coproducer, and a crew of old collaborators, Dr. Dre was finally ready for his next episode.

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Credit: The Ringer