No matter how many years roll by, the power of collaboration in hip-hop refuses to diminish. Even as they become increasingly commonplace, the news that two artists are finally crossing paths can still leave fans full of wonder and optimism. While a standalone track is enough to cause excitement, a full-on album is what sparks a real frenzy.
Although some meetings of the minds between two hip-hop heavyweights are met with skepticism, indifference, or just flat-out bemusement, the right combination can seize hold of the collective imagination. From Meth and Red, Drake and Future, through to The Throne asserting their unimpeachable dominance over the hip-hop landscape, the right collab at the right time can become a landmark in both artists’ legacies.
For all of the blockbuster joint projects that we've been treated to over the years, there are some which seemingly had all the makings of a classic and yet never saw the light of day. In this instance, we’re looking at the rekindling of a partnership that once altered the fabric of hip-hop as we know it in Ice Cube and Dr. Dre.
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After his acrimonious and very public departure from NWA, the possibility of Ice Cube ever re-entering the same circles as other members of ‘The World’s Most Dangerous Group’ felt like a pipe dream. Slighted by the “Benedict Arnold” moniker that they’d given him after he left the group, the release of his infamous “No Vaseline” diss drove a wedge that seemed as though it could never be healed.
Within two years of the 1991 release of Cube’s blistering, standard-bearer of a tirade, Dre’s decision to follow his former friend’s lead and depart from Jerry Heller’s Ruthless Records would help repair the rift between the two. Now at the forefront of his own, G-funk-tinged musical revolution at Suge Knight’s Death Row, Dre reached out to Cube and before long, he would make a hilarious cameo in the iconic video for The Chronic’s “Let Me Ride.”
Almost instantly, speculation over the status of both Dre and Cube’s personal and professional relationship began to do the rounds. And by the time that listeners flipped to the back of their copy of Snoop Doggy Dogg’s Doggystyle, they believed that they had their answer.
Amid teasers for records that were "soon to be released on Death Row," the CD packaging promised new music from Rage, The Dogg Pound and, most enticingly of all: "Dr Dre/ Ice Cube Helter Skelter."
Initially shrouded in secrecy, Dre confirmed that he and Cube were cooking up during a November 1993 appearance on Bill Bellamy’s “MTV Jams.”
“We’ve actually only worked on one song so far, it’s called “You Don’t Wanna See Me.” The title of the album is gonna be Helter Skelter and hopefully, it’ll be out for next summer. I know that people are gonna think it relates to Charles Manson and all of that, but Helter Skelter means things that happen for no apparent rhyme or reason. It’s going to be a funky album. Fat.”
The next month, Dre doubled down and uncharacteristically mapped out the composition of the record for all to see.
"We’re getting ready to start on our album. Matter of fact, he’s supposed to come over here later this evening. The plan is he’s going to do solo cuts on the album, I’m going to do two solo cuts on the album, the rest we’re going to do together. We’re gonna put ten, maybe 11 songs on there, and yeah, you know what’s gonna happen (laughs)."
Rounded off by Snoop claiming that he was vying to put his own "two cents" into the project, the first tangible indication of the pair getting back in the studio came when the soundtrack to Snoop Dogg’s mini-movie Murder Was The Case emerged.
Harboring one of the most visceral Dre beats of all time, the duo’s 1994 hit "Natural Born Killaz" struck hip-hop with the velocity of an atom bomb and presented the next evolution of the gangsta rap sound that they’d helped pioneer back in their NWA days.
Undoubtedly the most lauded track from this Billboard chart-topping album, a promotional interview from the time saw Dre and Cube pledge to "go full steam ahead" on the completion of Helter Skelter.
"It’s on like donkey kong," Cube remarked.
"We're gonna end up doing something together, I know that," Dre added. "We just gotta make up some songs first."
Although they appeared to have every intention of fulfilling their promise, the deadline of summer 1995 came and went without another hint of new music from the duo. On account of Dre’s well-publicized perfectionism, this didn’t necessarily dash hopes that the record would ever see the light of day. However, what neither Cube nor Dre could’ve accounted for was that both the record’s conceptual grounding and title was about to be taken from them by someone who’d been in Dre’s camp for years.
After parting ways with Death Row and Dre, The D.O.C– whose vocals had been irrevocably damaged in a car accident in the years since his landmark debut album No One Can Do It Better– decided to co-opt its theme.
Aggrieved about the dismissive treatment that he felt he’d received from the producer, The D.O.C’s Helter Skelter was released in January of 1996 and it’s safe to say that it was a far cry from the era-defining body of work that fans had expected from its originators. Speaking to HipHopDX in 2011, The D.O.C recounted how the experience of providing an assembly line of music for Death Row, without ever getting his credit, caused his frustrations to boil over.
"I wrote a song. Dre started working on an album. He wanted to work on an album with Cube, and it was supposed to be called Helter Skelter. And he gave me all of these books to read – apocalyptic books. He wanted me to get started for him. So I did," D.O.C affirmed. "I wrote this one song which I really liked…and when I played it for him, he immediately wanted to take it. And, those kinds of things just hurt," the Texan MC revealed. "I [got] tired of putting all of the work in but not being able to benefit, not being able to even get the love from it from the fans. These guys never told muthafuckas how hard I was working. When Doggystyle came out and they wanted to move to, ‘Now we’re gonna start working on the album with Ice Cube’ and I’m thinking, I’m putting [in] all this energy, this effort, but I can’t see how I’m going to win. How is this going to feed a future family of mine?"
Seeing his opportunity, The D.O.C funneled his contributions to the record into a new vision of his own that, while it does feature some of the dystopian ideas that you’d expect from a record titled Helter Skelter, doesn’t have the clarity or cohesion of a true concept album.
And in the testimony of longtime collaborator Erotic D, it’s clear that it was never about bringing this vision to life. Taking Dre’s idea from under him was more important.
"Dre hadn't put the record out yet and D.O.C told me straight up that he wanted to name the record before Dre could," he told DubCNN, "so that was the only motivation behind that title."
Blindsided and beaten to the punch, The D.O.C had delivered the death knell to Cube and Dre’s collaborative project. From there, the record has seldom, if ever, been mentioned by either party, but some scattered fragments of it remain out there in the world.
First surfacing online in the early 2000’s, the unreleased “My Life” culls from the ever-fruitful well of Roy Ayer’s “Everybody Loves The Sunshine.” And while Cube doesn’t appear on the track in its present form, fans believe that it was earmarked for their joint effort.
In terms of excerpts from the project that were actually released, it’s said that the instrumental used on "Can’t C Me" from Tupac’s seminal All Eyez On Me was initially allocated for Helter Skelter. Likewise, the sinister tones used in Scarface's "Game Over" (featuring Dre, Cube, and Too $hort) were first laid down during the sessions for the shelved album.
As we know, hip-hop fans can be incorrigible when a record that’s promised doesn’t emerge. So, after the pair had linked back up with MC Ren for War & Peace Vol 2’s trunk-rattling hit "Hello," the aspirations of seeing the two banding together lived on in the form of Cube’s short-lived tenure on Aftermath.
"Two of the biggest masterminds in West Coast hip-hop are together again. I think that's something exciting. [Me signing to Aftermath] was something that was kind of in the back of our minds for a while,' Cube told MTV from the set of Torque in 2003. "We kind of felt around and saw if Dre would be interested in something like that. He was all the way with it. Once he was all the way with it, we just started working on putting the deal in place. We're in the process of making it work. Hopefully next year you'll see an album by Cube produced by Dr. Dre. For me, it's exciting because my next album could be the best album I ever released. To me, that's something that turned me on to where I just want to get on the mic."
But like many of their best-laid plans, this fell by the wayside and left a cavernous hole in both of their catalogs where Helter Skelter was once slated to be. Where most of the blame for the derailing of the project usually falls at The D.O.C’s door, Ice Cube told Rap Radar that in reality, the downfall of this album, or any further project between him and Dre, came at the hands of the producer plowing all of his energy into his proteges.
"What happened to Helter Skelter was Eminem and 50 Cent," he revealed in 2010. "When we was thinking about doing this project, Eminem came in, he blew the doors of Interscope. Dre had to turn his focus strictly on that, which he should. With shit that’s poppin’, you need to jump on that train. You can’t be like ‘yo I’ll catch the next one.’ Once that train starts to die down, there goes 50, then The Game. A whole bunch of shit happened that put this project on the back, back burner because you can’t ignore that success. You can’t be like 'oh I got a pet project over here...' People were asking me ‘when is this gon pop?’ It ain’t gon pop before Dre say it’s gonna pop because he gotta do the music," Cube continued. "I got rhymes… I’m wit it, but it’s better to wait for his full undivided attention than to do some shit and people be like ehhh, it’s aight."
At present, that perfect time where everything aligns hasn’t come their way, and while both men have went on to exponential levels of success in the days since Helter Skelter was last on the docket, Cube later conceded in a Reddit AMA that not adding more work with the Doctor to his canon was one of his biggest regrets.
Although there’s every chance that we’ll hear Cube and Dre collide again as part of the forthcoming Cali supergroup Mt Westmore, Helter Skelter will always live on in the hearts of those who longed for a full project from Cube and Dre. Rather than just being some frivolous vanity project or cash-in, the prospect of these two men linking up while at the top of their respective games could’ve changed the course of hip-hop as we know it today.