Straight outta Titan: hip-hop star plans version of 'The Planets'

(ap)

Gustav Holst has done it, Richard Strauss has touched on it. Now Dr Dre, the godfather of hip-hop plans his own foray into space with a rap homage to the planets.

Dr Dre, a record executive, musician and producer of top performers such as Eminem and Snoop Dogg, has professed a desire to put together an instrumental album devoted to Earth and its celestial siblings.

He revealed his plans in an interview with Vibe magazine when he said: "It's just my interpretation of what each planet sounds like. I'm gonna go off on that. Just all instrumental. I've been studying the planets and learning the personalities of each planet. I've been doing this for about two years now. I wanna do it in surround sound. It'll have to be in surround sound for Saturn to work."

His efforts will doubtless be compared to Holst's The Planets and even Strauss's Also sprach Zarathustra, from which the "Sunrise" movement was taken for 2001: A Space Odyssey.

But where he boldly goes his hip-hop and other musical rivals have already scuffed the surface. The Beastie Boys managed "Intergalactic" and Ghostface Killah brought out "The Sun", while Pink Floyd won international acclaim with Dark Side of the Moon and Queen collaborated with Paul Rodgers for The Cosmos Rocks.