And the take my takeaway from the Esquire interview(in addition to the other interview I referenced above), was that .Paak was feeling the response to Oxnard warranted an "emergency."


>>>>>Did you want to make any changes to Ventura after winning your Grammy and announcing the tour?

I wanted to keep it as incubated as I could 'cause I wanted to keep the vibes with how we felt at the time. I didn't want to over-produce, I didn't want to start second-guessing it, I didn't want to drive myself crazy. I drove myself crazy with Oxnard. That was almost why I was like, I'm about to put over to the side now, like a "break in case of emergency." I did want to get one more song, but I wasn't really stressing, and then it just fell in my lap at the very end with one of my homies.

>>>>>What was it like working with Dr. Dre on the two albums?

With Oxnard, I felt like he wanted to get his chance to work with me. We started making music with him, working with his producers, working with his writers in his studio. We came up with one of the best material, "6 Summers." What else we did in that time? "Sweet Chick," and just lots of tunes. That's when I was like, you know what, I'm going to make album.

It's a learning process for him and with me. I had to compromise a few on the outside, and he's had to. I was learning from him a lot on Oxnard, and allowing myself to open up and be produced and to be more of a vessel. On his journey he's definitely learning all the same things, how to oversee and to make sure the songs were right, and trust in the fact of putting out more content on a regular basis is cool. And if he doesn't understand it, he's always like, I'm a rapper, I'm gonna trust that he knows what he's doing. I love him for that.

He let me have a lot of leeway on Ventura. He was like, it seems like you got it. I spread my wings on the production and on the writing and on these collaborations. Again, very ambitious, working with icons on this one as well. But it was chill working with Dre. Who else you know that will sign with Dre that's putting out this much content in this short of a time?