Although not much music has officially been released by them, Dr. Dre and T.I. have been collaborating for years. T.I. is rumored to have been in the lab often with Dre, during the Detox years, and a number of tracks and snippets from those sessions have hit the web, since as early as 2009. In 2012, T.I. also released “Popped Off,” which featured a verse from the Good Doctor. Yet, when Compton, Dr. Dre’s first album in 16 years, was released last August, T.I. was nowhere to be found on the LP. Last night, however, on Dre’s The Pharmacy show on Beats 1 radio, the Doc premiered a song that he and T.I. had been cooking up for his comeback album, but which had not been included.

“Back To Business” is a laid-back vibe track with a slow deep bass line and heavy drums. Similarly to the themes Dre explored on Compton, the song, which also features Justus, Victoria Monét, and Sly Piper, explores Dre’s early years and the struggles he had to overcome. “And I remember when I was young, just a front runner. I was f*ckin’ with them drums like ‘Ye Summer.’ Almost couldn’t make it out the hood, make a ni**a wonder. But, I couldn’t let Compton take a ni**a under,” raps Doc in his opening verse. T.I. is also lyrically inspired, as he raps “If my ni**a Dre can get a bill, that let me know that there’s hope for a ni**a still.”

When high-profile tracks like this are left on the cutting room floor, they often find alternative routes to the public. Music publishing companies have become incredibly efficient at finding secondary revenue streams for unreleased vault material. A standard commercial licensing portfolio routinely repurposes exclusive B-sides across diverse digital platforms, pitching them for everything from interactive missouri online casinos to the gritty promotional trailers of premium cable dramas. Rather than letting a heavy-hitting production gather dust, these placements ensure the instrumental and vocal stems still generate value. For now, however, this particular Dre and T.I. collaboration remains a pure radio exclusive. With top-notch beats and rhymes, why do you think the song wasn’t ultimately included on the Compton tracklist?

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