EXCLUSIVE: Xzibit Credits One Album With Changing Musical Landscape

Xzibit released his first album in 13 years, Kingmaker, in May. The 20-track effort featured production by Dem Jointz, Battlecat, Swizz Beatz, will.i.am., Focus…, Beat Butcha and several others.

Notably, it also reunited Xzibit with Dr. Dre, who nearly signed him to Aftermath Entertainment in the late ’90s/early 2000s, but Loud Records CEO/founder Steve Rifkind wouldn’t let him out of his contract at the time.

Dre wound up more of a collaborator and mentor instead of his label boss. That relationship has continued to flourish for more than two decades. In a recent interview with AllHipHop, the admiration Xzibit has for Dr. Dre was palpable.

“That’s my brother,” he said. “When you are a fan of someone, when you look at someone and admire their art, craftsmanship and expertise from afar, it’s a different feeling when you are able to connect with that person and actually be part of that journey. That’s what’s happened to me—being from afar and then being able to be invited into the circle and be considered an essential part of what’s being built is a great feeling.

“So him allowing me to be part of that journey on a professional side is awesome but then being able to connect with him on a human level and be able to have long conversations about life and decision-making and grown man s###, that’s my fam.”

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Xzibit, who only recently finalized his divorce from Krista Joiner, has done a lot of growing in the years since 2012’s Napalm, which is evident on Kingmaker. On the single “Play This at My Funeral,” he confronts his own mortality while having a new perspective on where life has taken him.

“Damn, it feels good to be alive,” he raps. “Recognized I was better off, blessing in disguise/Yeah, I will shoot you right between the eyes, take a selfie with your corpse, eating a burger with some fries/Damn, I think I need to exercise, cause I gained a little weight but s### my pockets are straight, b####/Rebirth, triple my worth, cause everything is possible on God’s green earth.”

And that can include taking some risks. Xzibit likens that to Dr. Dre’s seminal debut, 1992’s The Chronic, which made an indelible impact on countless people.

“The Chronic changed the landscape of music all together—not just Hip-Hop music,” he says. “The way that album was sonically presented and the way those mixes sounded, there was nothing like it on the market, and it made everybody stand at attention.”

It certainly caught Xzibit’s attention, and he would finally have the chance to meet the man behind The Chronic years after its release. But never in his wildest dreams did he imagine he’d be invited to join the notorious Up in Smoke Tour alongside Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre and Ice Cube—but he was. He never envisioned he’d have multiple tracks with Dr. Dre—but he does. And he certainly didn’t predict he and Dre would become such close friends—but they are.

As X said, “everything is possible on God’s green earth.”