Ice Cube was discussing the soundtrack to the N.W.A. biopic Straight Outta Compton this morning when he suddenly switched directions and claimed Dr. Dre would also be releasing a new album on August 1. Wait...seriously?
"Dre is dropping an album inspired by the Compton movie. He's dropping something on August 1," Cube noted offhand while discussing the film's soundtrack on Philadelphia's Power 99 radio. "It's mega, it's Dr. Dre, it's what everybody's been waiting for...It's definitely a dope record, and he's dropping it all on the same day."
If you have any finger on the pulse of hip-hop or even Top 40 music, you understand how big of an announcement this is, even if Cube doesn't seem to make a big deal out of it. Dre created one of the bestselling hip-hop albums of all time when he dropped The Chronic during 1994, and then he waited another five years to release the ironically-titled 2001 during 1999. After that...nothing. Rumors of an album titled Detox lingered for the next 16 years, and various sources indicated its existence, although the title has changed in the years since. Essentially, it serves as the only rival to the Guns N' Roses' Chinese Democracy as the biggest mythological album of all time.
And now Ice Cube casually announces on a random radio interview that it will be out soon (he didn't indicate what the title will be).
So how seriously should we take this news? We've got no reason to doubt him—he was in the studio with Dre to create new N.W.A. music for the forthcoming soundtrack—but we'd really like to get a statement from Dre before we fall for this hook, line and sinker.
Cube also suggested strongly that an N.W.A. reunion is possible, although he didn't comment on whether Eminem would step in for deceased member Eazy-E.
Stay tuned.
