It’s difficult to write about Dr. Dre’s Detox album without sounding like some sappy, sentimental, musically-deprived hip-hop fan, but it’s not often that you can describe an album as being “almost a decade in the making” when you’re talking about a genre that began to blossom in the 80s. This year, the first concrete evidence that Detox still exists, even conceptually, came in June with the leak of the Jay-Z featured track “Under Pressure,” which quickly prompted Dre to run some damage control. He confirmed that the track was unfinished and would not appear on Detox, before promising to release an official single within a few weeks. That never happened. And clearly, no one has any patience left for Dre’s timeline, because yet another song has leaked, finally forcing him to push it as an official single.

The Snoop Dogg and Akon-featured “Kush” has received a much warmer reception than “Under Pressure,” but this time, Dre released a disclaimer about the song’s content. “I don’t want people to think that that’s what my album is about,” he explained in an interview with Los Angeles' Power 106 radio station. “This is actually the only song with that type of content in it. It’s not a representation of what the album is.”

So, we shouldn’t be expecting The Chronic Part II, but what can we expect? “I see the finish line right now. I'm wrapping it up,” Dre continued. “I need about two or three more songs and hopefully I'll start the mixing process at the end of next month. From that point I'm about 30 days out." Fingers are crossed, but this feels a little bit like déjà vu. We’ll check back in six months, and in the meantime, here are a few rumored Dr. Dre collaborations that we can look forward to, in case Detox doesn’t surface until next winter.

Eminem: In addition to “Kush,” a new Dre and Shady collabo, “I Need a Doctor,” also hit the web today. The duo have tag-teamed numerous hits on their respective albums, and last month, during a Shade 45 interview, Em sparked some excitement when he revealed that he was back in the lab with Dre. There will be more where this came from - independently of Detox, if we're lucky.

J.Cole: Jay-Z’s protégé dropped his Friday Night Lights mixtape last week (in anticipation of his Roc Nation debut) and then confirmed that he's been cooking up some magic with Dre. He declined to spill the details - “I did some work with Dr. Dre, without going any further than that” - but we already have the chills.

Dipset: Camron, Julez, and Jim Jones finally ended their feud and pieced the Harlem crew back together this summer. Their new album is due out in 2011, and a few snapshots have appeared of them in the studio with the West Coast producer. Look out for Jim Jones dropping some ad-libs over a Dre beat.

Justin Bieber: Just kidding. But, seriously - the tween pop star did score some studio time with Dre back in July, and if a Dre and Bieber collaboration were to leak before Detox, or any music from the preceding artists, things could get ugly.

Imagine the value increase in Beats By Dr. Dre Headphones if they were accompanied by some actual Dre beats.