Snoop Dogg has released more music than most. Throughout his three-decade career, he’s dropped 20 solo albums and countless other projects, alongside innumerable guest appearances. Still, only one song he’s ever recorded has brought him to tears.
The Long Beach rapper released his Missionary album in 2024, the long-awaited sequel to his debut Doggystyle, which arrived on Death Row Records in 1993. Like the original project, Dre produced the entire record while providing some guest verses.
One song on the album almost didn’t make the final tracklist. Dre was close to removing ‘Now or Never’, a track that features BJ The Chicago Kid, but Snoop Dogg petitioned to keep it on the project. “Snoop said he would shoot me if I did,” Dre told Complex. “I think that’s one of the two songs that I appear on vocally and I really fuck with that now. His delivery and the lyrics and the way he came off on that one, I would say that was one of the ones that’s really impressive to me.”
Explaining why he almost took it off the album, Dre said, “Because it’s really slow and much more mellow than the rest of the songs on the album. And I wanted to make it so every song on this album could be performed live. And this isn’t one of those songs, but it’s good enough to be on the record.”
Part of the reason for Snoop wanting to keep ‘Now or Never’ on Missionary is due to the emotional impact it had on him. “Well, that’s the song that made me cry. No songs that I ever made made me cry. Real shit,” Snoop admitted. Dre, unaware of how he felt about the record, replied, “I never heard you say that. This n*gga getting mushy.”
Snoop defended himself crying over the song, explaining how much the lyrics mean to him. “No, no, not like that,” he said. “’Cause we was at the little thing with Interscope when we was playing the record and they had asked me, ‘What song means the most to you?’ And I said that record. And I played it, and when I played it, the motherfucker made me cry. There’s certain shit that’s being said in that verse that’s deep to me.”
Dre added, “Yeah, I agree with that. I fucks with it because the way the vocals move, it’s a rollercoaster ride. And BJ The Chicago Kid came through on the hook and he made it sound amazing. That’s the bridge between Snoop’s verse and my verse and that made me say, ‘OK, alright, that goes on the album.’ Along with the threat Snoop gave me.”
‘Now or Never’ finds Snoop Dogg spitting the first verse, with BJ The Chicago Kid coming in on the chorus. Dre then enters the fray with the second verse. Snoop raps in the song, “Uh, same song/ Smoking ’til the pain gone/ Somehow a n*gga made it through the rainstorm/ Living a dirty life/ Under the bright lights/ Hated on, hanging on, n*ggas still banging on when I’m just trying to take flight.”
He continues, “Women always trying to entice/ Bitch, you know I got a wife/ Uh, homegrown ozone, bad habits, long gone/ Your n*gga reaching new heights/ Ay, just for me to live in this bitch/ Why did somebody have to die?”
