Over the past year, rapper Tito Lopez has made a name for himself as one of Dr. Dre’s go-to writers. Now, in a recent interview will AllHipHop, the Mississippi recalls his first encounter with the Good Doctor.
Lopez said that he actually met Dr. Dre not too long after he had signed to Capitol Records. He said that the two first connected over basketball, but the conversation quickly turned to Lopez’s lyrical skills.
“Detox, you know, was a straight accident, really,” he explained. “You know, I’m signed to Capitol Records; that classic building over there is in L.A., so I spent a lot of time over on the West Coast, and I spent a lot of time in Cali period since I got my deal. I signed last year, but I’ve been keeping it on the low. Actually, I was already signed when I met Dre – a lot of people think that’s how I got my deal, but that’s just the homie. So we went and met him at Encore Studios; good dude. We chopped it up about basketball, and I was just supposed to be there for a couple of minutes, but we hit it off, and he wanted to hear some music. But me, I’m raw, a lot of niggas can make themselves sound good on a record, but let me just spit for you raw and let you know what it is. I spit for him, and he cut on a beat, and what you see is what you get. Someone posted something on YouTube, and from there, he was just like, ‘Let’s go do some writing and work on some music.'”
Lopez also discussed meeting fellow Mississippian and current tour mate Big K.R.I.T. He said that he always knew of K.R.I.T. back in Mississippi, but he didn’t actually meet the Def Jam signee until Sha Money XL introduced the two artists in New York.
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“I met [K.R.I.T.] a couple of years ago and there’s no egos or nothing,” he said. “What was incredible is I met him in New York. I already knew of him in Mississippi; we may have crossed paths, but he lived in a different part, so when we finally really chopped it up over at the Def Jam cypher – because Sha Money [XL] is my man, and he signed to Def Jam – I found out he’s a fan of my music.”
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