“Nowadays everybody wanna talk like they got something to say… act like they forgot about Dre”, have we really forgotten about Dre? Yes he may not be on the radio like Drake, Wayne and many others but that doesn’t mean we have forgotten about the good ole Dr. Dre.
Born in 1965 as Andre Romelle Young, Dre was a big contributor to the rise in popularity in West Coast music and the style West Coast G-Funk, a rap style characterized as synthesizer based with slow and heavy beats. Dre would begin his career at the age of eighteen with an electro group called World Class Wreckin’ Cru. He would later leave the group and join N.W.A. three years later, with Ice Cube, Eazy-E, DJ Yella and Arabian Prince. MC Ren wouldn’t join the group until two years later with the departure of Arabian Prince. The group’s debut album, Straight Outta Compton sparked the new gangsta rap era with the group being nominated into the Rock and Roll Hall of Frame twice, once in 2012 and a second time a year
later, sadly they haven’t been voted into the hall of frame as of yet.
Dr. Dre would release his first solo album in 1992 on Death Row Records entitled, The Chronic which propelled him to becoming one of the best-selling artist in 93. The Chronic, many would argue, was Dre’s best and held as a classic, even till today. A year prior to his first album, Dre would depart ways with Eazy-E’s label Ruthless and team up with The D.O.C. to form Death Row Records, after Ice Cube left N.W.A. over financial disagreements with Jerry Heller. Suge Knight would play a big role in acquiring the start up money from strong arming rapper Vanilla Ice over contracts and rights to a song, “Ice Ice Baby”. Dre would also produce Death Row lablel mate Snoop Dogg’s Doggy Stylewhich went quadruple platinum after releasing The Chronic. Four years after his album, Dre would leave Death Row due to dwindling involvement in the label after the departure of The D.O.C. and Suge Knight’s tighter grip over the label, and went on to establish his own production label, Aftermath Entertainment.
Aftermath would release The Firm, a hip hop super-group composed of AZ, Foxy Brown, Nas and Nature in the Fall of 1997. This would be the only project the group would do and subsequently disbanded, despite the album, which featured production and cameos by Dr. Dre, debuting on the Billboard 200 and being certified platinum. It however sold below commercial expectations. Dre’s second album would drop three years later with the album 2001 which featured his newest prodigy, Eminem. Dre has yet to drop another album even though there was a rumor and heavy buzz and anticipation about him dropping Detox, but it never materialized. We are still waiting for it today, (See Dre, we haven’t forgot!). Dre however has produced, added vocals and overseen many artists careers, many becoming household names and gone and having great careers, including; Snoop Dogg, Eminem, 50 Cents and Kendrick Lamar. Aftermath roster includes and had included; 50 Cents, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, Busta Rhymes, Hi-Tek, Rakim and Raekwon.
Dre like many other rappers such as Jay-z, 50 Cents, Diddy, just didn’t stop with music but expanded his name and legacy into becoming an entrepreneur. He co-founded Beats By Dre with Jimmy Lovine, which the company made various types of head phones from studio performance to everyday usage. He would later in May 2014, sell the brand to Apple for 3 billion dollars making him the richest man in hip hop. According to Forbes, Dre has a net worth of 550 million dollars as of 2014.
In recent news and anticipation, a new movie “Straight Outta Compton” following the rise and fall of N.W.A., is due to hit theaters this August. The movie has been widely anticipated across the hip hop world but it has been met with some controversy. Back in 2014 according to The Daily Beast, Surge Knight had sent a text to an unidentified victim threating him saying;
“I will see u in person… u have kids just like me so let’s play hardball you bitch ass Nigga” and “I’m from Bompton… time has arrived Faith in God keep people safe The Devils money can’t save no 1…I will make sure u an that Fagg [Dr. Dre] and Taft High school graduate [Ice Cube] receive your hugs…”
As a result, Suge Knight had his bail increased to 25 million which upon news, caused him to faint.
Dre has been inspirational in the world of hip hop, contributing to a lot of careers but has also possibly rubbed others the wrong way due to his hard, perfectionist ways. It has been said that he would stop a MC while recording if it’s not to his liking and or have an artist record a single bar of vocals several hundred times in order to reach that perfection. Snoop Dogg and Eminem both credit their careers to this ethic while others parted ways with Dre and Aftermath while not ever releasing a full album. While the world may have forgotten about some of these acts, one thing we know for sure is that we have not forgotten about Dr. Dre and the impact he had left on us from his days with N.W.A. and the gangsta rap movement to his classic album, The Chronic and his work with many other artists that gone on to have successful careers and albums. Dre, a mastermind, genius is well deserving to be called “Doctor”, anything else said would just be gibberish.
No comments:
Post a Comment