Dr Dre Life and Career
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Andre Young, or Dr. Dre as he is widely known today, was born February 18, 1965, in South Central, LA. Considered to be the pioneer of gangster rap and the man responsible for changing the face of hip-hop, Dr. Dre got his start as a DJ at Eve After Dark, a Los Angeles nightclub.
After working at house parties with the World Class Wreckin’ Cru and garnering some recording experience along the way, Dr. Dre met Ice Cube, and together they wrote songs for Eazy-E’s record company, Ruthless Records. After HBO, a group signed to Ruthless, refused to take a song written by Ice and Dre, Eazy-E and the dynamic duo formed their own group, NWA (which stands for Niggaz With Attitude), and signed with Priority.
Dre’s early work with N.W.A. garnered the tough rapper a reputation for fearless abandon. With their gritty tales of violent life on the streets the group encountered more than a little controversy, though their then-unique approach to rap inspired countless imitators along with their vehement detractors. Later helping to launch the careers of Snoop Doggy Dogg and stepbrother Warren G. as a producer, Dre proved that he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon and remained one of the most innovative fixtures in the hip-hop universe.
Some of Dre’s early work in the film industry involved orchestrating the soundtracks for such films as Above The Rimand Murder Was the Case in 1994. Taking the director’s chair for 1993′s Hour of Chaos and Murder Was the Case the following year, Dre also turned up in front of the camera for Set it Off (1996), Whiteboyz (1999), and Training Day (2001).
Despite his reputation for being so “hard,” Dre’s first major film role would come surprisingly in the comedy The Wash (2001) alongside longtime friend and fellow G-Funk cohort Snoop Doggy Dogg. With former collaborator Icq Cube having already taken his act to the screen for laughs in 1995′s Friday, it appeared as if the ever-serious former N.W.A. killaz had finally lightened up a bit and taken on a more easygoing celluloid existence as opposed to their more dangerous vinyl incarnation.
NWA first came on the scene in 1987, and released Straight Outta Compton a year later. The trio became renowned for their hardcore lyrics and their run-ins with the law. When Ice Cube left in 1989, Eazy-E and Dre remained, with Eazy-E as the outstanding rapper and lyricist and Dre as the outstanding producer and music creator, as seen on the 1991 album Efil4zaggin (Niggaz For Life).
Despite NWA’s phenomenal success, Dr. Dre left the duo in 1992, and co-founded Death Row Records with Vanilla Ice’s ex-publicist, Marion “Suge” Knight. Apparently Dr. Dre felt he was underpaid, especially since 7 out of the 8 albums he produced went platinum. Dr. Dre’s first solo release in 1992, The Chronic, was an ode to marijuana (cocaine was out), not to mention a huge success. The multi-platinum album earned a lot of critical acclaim and commercial success, remaining on the Billboard charts for 8 months on the strength of singles like “Nuthin’ But a ‘G’ Thang” and “Dre Day.”
While Dr. Dre had claimed his name as a premier rapper, Death Row Records was flying high on the success of Snoop Doggy Dogg’s four times platinum Doggystyle and the newest gangsta rap star, 2Pac (Dre produced and appeared on Tupac’s “California Love”).
Although Dr. Dre wasn’t releasing any solo albums for a few years, he was busy producing and breaking ground with his G-Funk sound. In addition to working with Warren G on his Regulate album as well as Blackstreet, Dr. Dre reunited with Ice Cube for “Natural Born Killaz.” The revolutionary rapper also produced soundtracks for Above the Rim and Murder Was the Case.
In 1996, Dr. Dre declared gangster rap dead, and left Death Row records to form his own record label, Aftermath. Apparently, Dre left because he didn’t agree with Suge Knight’s techniques, in addition to what he thought would be a new kind of rap on the horizon.
In the meantime, Knight was sentenced to 9 years in prison, and Death Row’s success met its end, as Dre has predicted. The good doctor released Aftermath’s debut album, Dr. Dre Presents… The Aftermath, a compilation of artists. Although the latter was disappointing, it did feature the successful single, “Been There Done That,” which was a kiss-off to his former Death Row partner, Knight.
Dr. Dre was already renowned for his producing skills and his work with other artists, most notably Snoop Doggy Dogg, but he is now recognized for bringing his protégé, Detroit troublemaker Marshall Mathers, to the foreground.
Dre co-produced Eminem’s debut breakthrough album in 1999, The Slim Shady LP, with Dr. Dre on the single “Guilty Conscience.” Eminem returned in 2000 with the phenomenally successful The Marshall Mathers LP, with Dre receiving credit for the album’s production.
Despite his work with other artists, Dr. Dre still released solo albums, such as Dr. Dre 2001 (featuring Mary J. Blige, Eminem and Xzibit) and 2001 Instrumental in 1999, and most recently Maximum Dr. Dre.
Dr. Dre may be known for his trademark G-funk sound (which is a transformed version of George Clinton’s sound, and also known as gangster funk) and for revolutionizing rap, but he also had his share of brushes with the law.
In 1991, Dr. Dre was charged with assaulting TV host Dee Barnes, and the following year he hit a police officer at a New Orleans hotel and broke the jaw of a fellow record-producer. In 1995, Dre spent 5 months in a Pasadena City Jail for violating parole. He was back in court in 2001, but this time teaming up with Metallica (particularly Lars Ulrich) in their efforts to bring Napster down. As producer, rapper and revolutionary, one thing’s for sure: the doctor’s in the house, and it’s definitely his day.
Detox is to be Dr. Dre’s final album. In 2002, Dre told Corey Moss of MTV News that he intended Detox to be a concept album. Work for the album dates back to early 2004, but later in that year he decided to stop working on the album to focus on producing for other artists, but then changed his mind; the album had initially been set for a fall 2005 release. After several delays, the album was finally scheduled to be released sometime in 2010 by Interscope Records, which has not set a firm release date for the album as of July 2010. Producers confirmed to work on the album include DJ Khalil, Nottz, Bernard “Focus” Edwards Jr., Hi-Tek, J.R. Rotem, RZA, Jay-Z, Warren G, and Boi-1da. Snoop Dogg claimed that Detox was finished, according to a June 2008 report by Rolling Stone magazine.
After another delay based on producing other artists’ work, Detox is now scheduled for a 2010 release, coming after 50 Cent’s Before I Self Destruct and Eminem’s Relapse, an album for which Dr. Dre handled the bulk of production duties. Dre appeared in the remix of the song “Set It Off” by Canadian rapper Kardinal Offishall (also with Pusha T); the remix debuted on DJ Skee’s radio show in December 2008.
At the beginning of 2009, Dre produced, and made a guest vocal performance on, the single “Crack a Bottle” by Eminem and the single sold a record 418,000 downloads in its first week. and reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart on the week of February 12, 2009. Along with this single, in 2009 Dr. Dre produced or co-produced 19 of 20 tracks on Eminem’s album Relapse. These included other hit singles “We Made You”, “Old Time’s Sake”, and “3 a.m.”. (the only track Dre didn’t produce was the Eminem produced single “Beautiful”)
In a Dr Pepper commercial that debuted on May 28, 2009, he premiered the first official snippet of Detox. 50 Cent and Eminem asserted in an interview on BET’s 106 & Park that Dr. Dre had around a dozen songs finished for Detox. Detox is likely to be released sometime in 2011.
In an August 2010 interview, Dr. Dre stated that an instrumental album titled The Planets is in its first stages of production; each song being named after a planet in the Solar System. On September 3rd, Dr. Dre showed support to longtime protoge Eminem, and appeared on his and Jay-Z’s Home & Home Tour, performing hit songs such as “Still D.R.E.,” “Nuthin’ But A G Thang,” and “Crack A Bottle,” alongside his longtime protoges Eminem & 50 Cent. Sporting a “R.I.P. Proof Shirt,” Dre was honored by Em telling Detroit’s Comerica Park to do the same. They did so, by chanting “DEEE-TOX,” to which he replied, “I’m coming!.”
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