Multi-platinum producer and Pittsburgh, PA native Melvin Bradford, a/k/a Mel-Man, is best known for co-producing the six-times platinum 2001 album by Dr. Dre. However, Mel-Man has also produced on a few other several-times platinum efforts for artists including Eminem (“The Real Slim Shady”), Xzibit (“X”), Truth Hurts (“Tired”, “Benefit of the Doubt”), The Firm (“Untouchable”), Busta Rhymes (“Bounce (Let Me See Ya Throw It)”) and Snoop Dogg (“Dogg Named Snoop”).
With “Dogg Named Snoop”, a song off the Bones soundtrack in 2001, Mel-Man crafted an incredible head-nodding beat by pairing his incomparable drums with a sampled Tray Deee hook, and some booming horns.
Snoop Dogg raps with a steady flow over the infectious beat like his flow on the 2nds verse: “Roll with me, S-N-double O-P/Mel-man where ya been O.G./Tell me, the game’ll never fail me/Ask J or my lil’ homie Shelby/Uh, I cut em’ up like Marcus Welby/This is the dopest G, that you will ever see/There’ll never be, another me/By the grace of God, ya lovin’ me/Pause, do it to em’ dogg/Now drop a rock em’ dogg/Now put a lock em’ dogg/Rollin’ down the river spinnin’ on a log/Jog to the liquor store, grab me a thicker ho/Get me a Michelob, now I want to Snicker though/Remind me of the old days/When my mama used to bang the O’Jays”.
The Doggfather shouts out Mel-man to close out the song, and one wonders where Mel-Man has disappeared to. After all, when you work on classic, multi-platinum albums like the Slim Shady LP, Marshall Mathers LP, Restless, and Genesis, it begs the question of what happened to one of the dopest producers we ever heard.
Check out “Dogg Named Snoop” by Snoop Dogg, produced by Mel-Man below: