Russ has received the ultimate praise from one of Hip Hop’s greatest producers ever thanks to his new album, Santiago.
The “What They Want” rapper took to Instagram on Thursday (August 17) to post a video of himself and Dr. Dre nodding their heads in unison while listening to “Enough,” a song from his latest project.
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According to Russ, Dre wasn’t bopping his head purely out of politeness.
“SANTIAGO OUT NOW,” he wrote in his caption. “A big part of this album is about validating yourself and chasing your own approval. But I can’t lie DR DRE APPROVAL FEELS GOOD AS FUCK!!!!”
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He added: “But above all, it was you all along. IM 5 SHOTS OF TEQUILA DEEP. THIS IS CRAAAZZYYYY ITS OUT!!!!! LETS GOOOOOO.”
Check out the video below:
Russ previously shared some behind-the-scenes photos of his studio session with Dr. Dre back in June. Snoop Dogg was also present during the session, along with Death Row Records co-founder Michael “Harry-O” Harris and former Apple Music and Interscope executive Larry Jackson.
Despite being co-signed by such major players, Russ remains a proudly independent artist who often lifts the curtain on the inner-workings of the music industry, and earlier this month dispelled the myth surrounding Spotify’s Monthly Listeners stat.
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“Sat down with Spotify and got to finally debunk wtf monthly listeners actually means,” he wrote on Twitter. “Shoutout to all my ‘super listeners’. Super listeners on average make up 2% of an artists monthly listeners. Y’all make up 9% of mine.”
He continued in a separate tweet, saying that while his Spotify page lists 14 million monthly listeners, only 10 million of those are “active” listeners. The other four million are just passive listeners who stumbled upon his tunes through playlists or Spotify radio.
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“I have 10,000,000 people in my active audience out of my 14m monthly listeners,” he explained. “That’s people who go out of their way to listen to my music The rest is people who heard it on a playlist or Spotify radio etc..they weren’t actively tryna hear it.
“This is why I say the monthly listeners number is a facade. I wonder what the active audience number really is for other artists who have crazy playlisting etc.”
In a separate video, Russ celebrated his die-hard fans and said he often stays up late DMing his supporters and talking with them for “hours.”
“I think it’s a testament to staying connected with my fans,” he said of his “super listeners.” “It’s funny to sort of debunk the monthly listeners number because I see how volatile it is. To see that I actually have 10 million that are active is awesome.”
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Russ released his long-awaited album Santiago on Friday (August 18). He previously said that the project represents “my mental, spiritual, physical and emotional journey to my treasure,” and is his journey to “self love & self mastery while touching on the obstacles that have provided resistance along the way.”
Stream Santiago below:
