Ventura is Anderson .Paak’s fourth studio album. The title follows the theme of his previous albums, making his way up the California coast. Its predecessor, Oxnard, was released less than five months prior. Like its predecessor, the album is executive produced by Dr. Dre, and both albums were created simultaneously.
On May 25, 2018, during an Instagram livestream, Dr. Dre accidentally revealed that .Paak’s album would be titled Oxnard Ventura. Then, in a September 2018 Rolling Stone interview, the album’s title was revealed to have been shortened to simply Oxnard. It appears this could have been a double album that was later split into two.
During his appearance on a February 2019 episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, .Paak stated:
I made a lot of music with Dr. Dre, probably two albums' worth.
Later, on February 27, 2019, in addition to announcing a tour, .Paak announced Ventura and its release date.
The tracklist and cover art were released on March 14, 2019, via Anderson’s social media.
Because he “drove [himself] crazy” with Oxnard, he decided to release Ventura, saying in an interview with Esquire:
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 [Ventura] over to the side now, like a “break in case of emergency.”
He later on went to say, “[Dr. Dre] let me have a lot of leeway on Ventura. He was like, it seems like you got it.”
On April 10, 2019, .Paak’s YouTube channel posted this teaser: