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Dr. Dre

André Romell Young (born February 18, 1965 in Compton, California), better known by his stage name Dr. Dre, is an American record producer, rapper, actor and record executive. He is the founder and current CEO of Aftermath Entertainment and a former co-owner and artist of Death Row Records.

He was a founding member of the influential rap group N.W.A., which popularized the use of explicit lyrics in rap detailing the violence of street life (also known as Gangsta rap). He has also produced albums for and overseen the careers of some of the biggest stars in (mostly) rap music, including 2Pac, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, 50 Cent, G-Unit, The Game, Nate Dogg, Busta Rhymes, and Eve. With tens of millions of records he has produced sold worldwide (including over 65 million with Eminem alone), he is widely regarded as one of the most popular and powerful figures in rap music of all time.

Musically, as a producer he is credited as a key figure in the creation and popularization of West Coast G-funk, a style of rap music characterized as synthesizer-based with slow, heavy beats. G-funk dominated the U.S. rap charts in the period of 1992–1996, and is still considered one of the major living styles of hip hop today.

His stage name "Dr. Dre" was derived from his nickname and that of his favorite basketball athlete, Julius "Dr. J" Erving.

Until this point, hip-hop had been considered a relatively benign form of music and free of profanity. N.W.A. however, along with fellow west coast rapper Ice T, debuted with rhymes including profanity and gritty depictions of crime and life on the street. No longer constricted to racially charged political issues pioneered by rap artists such as Public Enemy or Boogie Down Productions, N.W.A shot out with hardcore and realistic perspective of street violence and local black gangster lifestyle. Propelled by the hit "Fuck tha Police", the group's first full album Straight Outta Compton became a major success, selling over 3,000,000 copies despite an almost complete absence of radio-airplay and major concert tours.

As a producer, Young's vocals were limited on the album, but he achieved notoriety in 1991 after assaulting television host Dee Barnes after she aired a segment reporting on the feud between the remaining N.W.A. members and recently departed member Ice Cube. Possibly to compensate for Ice Cube's absence, he began to rap more on the group's second album Efil4zaggin. He also produced tracks for a number of other rap acts on Ruthless Records, including Above the Law, and his friend The D.O.C.'s album No One Can Do It Better. Young frequently used studio musicians for tracks, and his work with N.W.A. was co-produced by DJ Yella. Later, The D.O.C. would say that his album would be the one record that Dr. Dre produced from start to finish without help from any outside contributors (see references for details).

Despite pioneering N.W.A.'s sound as the group's principal producer, Dr. Dre complained of unfair contracts that left him with little compensation for the group's tremendous profits (lead rapper and principal lyricist Ice Cube had left following the release of Straight Outta Compton due to similar complaints). After a dispute with Wright, Young left the group at the peak of its popularity in 1991 under the advice of friend, and N.W.A. lyricist, The D.O.C. and his bodyguard at the time, Suge Knight. Knight, a notorious strongman and intimidator, was somehow able to have Wright release Young from his contract, and using Dr. Dre as his flagship artist, founded Death Row Records after securing a distribution deal with the fledgling Interscope Records, helmed by future head of Universal Music Jimmy Iovine

While N.W.A. had sold two million records of their breakthrough album Straight Outta Compton, they had been a counter-culture phenomenon, and done so on an independent label (Ruthless Records) without radio airplay or major acceptance from the mainstream record industry. Interscope head Iovine saw promise in Young's music, and saw his new sweet, synthesizer-based sound as a way of palletizing the hard beats of gangsta rap and giving it a more mainstream appeal. "One reason I hadn't been that interested in hip-hop is most hip-hop records sounded cheap, tinny", Iovine said later in a 2006 interview with the Los Angeles Times. "But Dre's music sounded better on my speakers than most rock records. I didn't know hip-hop, but I knew my speakers, and this was fantastic".

Young released his first solo single "Deep Cover", (also known as "187") in the spring of 1992. This was the beginning of his collaboration with Calvin Broadus, Jr., or Snoop Doggy Dogg (now known as Snoop Dogg), a promising young rapper introduced to him by his step-brother, Warren G (see references for details). In 1992, Young released his debut album The Chronic under Death Row Records. Until this point, rap had been primarily party music (e.g., Def Jam Recordings's The Beastie Boys), or angry and politically charged (e.g. Public Enemy, X-Clan, etc.), and the music had consisted almost entirely of samples and breakbeats. Young ushered in a new style of rap, both in terms of musical style and lyrical content.

Artistically, The Chronic continued to describe gang life much in the same way that Young's former group N.W.A. had, but with more of a focus on women and soft drugs (hence the title of The Chronic, which refers to high-grade marijuana). The beats were slower and mellower, borrowing from late 1970s/early 1980s Funk music by George Clinton and his group Parliament. By mixing these early influences with original live instrumentation, he created a distinctive musical style later to be known as G-funk.

Although the album was initially unheralded, on the strength of singles such as "Nuthin' but a "G" Thang", featuring protege Snoop Doggy Dogg and hits like "Let Me Ride" and "Fuck wit Dre Day (and Everybody's Celebratin')" (Shortened to "Dre Day" for radio and television play), The Chronic became a cultural phenomenon and a multi-platinum seller, and is now widely considered to be one of rap's all-time classic albums.

It soon became virtually impossible to hear mainstream hip-hop that wasn't affected in some way by Young. Hip-hop, which had once been a sample and break-beat centered music rising primarily form New York and other East Coast cities, began to see a shift in attention to the West Coast, where the G-funk style created by Dr. Dre was the most influential. Indeed, were it not for the influence of Dr. Dre, it's possible that the infamous "East Coast/West Coast" feud of the mid-1990s might never have even transpired, as the West would have had no competing style of rap or even many visible artists with which to contrast to New York's.

The following year, Young produced Broadus' debut album Doggystyle, with similar subject matter and musical style. Doggystyle achieved phenomenal success, being the first debut album for an artist to debut at #1 on the Billboard charts. It went on to sell over 5 million copies. Young was also instrumental in the creation of other hit west coast records, including the Death Row act Tha Dogg Pound's album Dogg Food, and influenced his own step-brother Warren G's album Regulate...G Funk Era.

In 1995, just as Death Row Records was signing rapper 2Pac and positioning him as their major star, Young left Death Row Records amidst a contract dispute and growing concerns that label boss Suge Knight was corrupt, financially dishonest and out of control. In an interview with The Source shortly after his departure, Dr. Dre alluded to incidents such as Knight's beating of an engineer as pivotal in his decision to leave. He formed his own boutique label Aftermath Entertainment directly underneath Death Row's distributor, the Jimmy Iovine-helmed Interscope Records. Not long after Young's departure, the fortunes of Death Row took a dramatic turn, following the death of 2Pac and racketeering charges against Knight. Within the next few months, the label's final major star Snoop Doggy Dogg would also leave and Knight would go to prison. The label entered a steady decline, and now makes profits almost entirely off of old works recorded during its heyday.

The Dr. Dre Presents the Aftermath album, released at the end of the year, featured songs by the newly signed Aftermath artists, and a solo track "Been There, Done That". The track was intended as a symbolic good-bye to gangsta rap, in which Young suggested that he was moving on to another level of music and lifestyle. While initially going gold (500,000 units), the album was considered a critical disappointment by Dre's standards, failing to raise much talk of the label. Today, the compilation album is most notable for the fact that none of the artists introduced on the record went on to successful careers. In 1997, Young produced several tracks on Nas, Foxy Brown, AZ, and Nature Present The Firm: The Album; although the album went platinum, it was met with similarly negative reviews from critics. Rumors began to abound that Aftermath was facing financial difficulties.

The turning point for Aftermath came in 1998, when Jimmy Iovine, the head of Aftermath's parent label Interscope, suggested that Young sign the white Detroit rapper Marshall Mathers, artistically known as Eminem, to Aftermath. Interscope saw promise in Mathers, but feared that the fact he was white would harm his credibility in the overwhelmingly black market of hip hop. It was hoped that pairing him with Young would help establish him as a credible star (since then, Iovine has made similar matches with other Interscope artists, pairing Canadian singer Nelly Furtado with hip-hop producer Timbaland, and former ska-pop No Doubt lead singer Gwen Stefani with Pharrell Williams). Young produced three songs and provided vocals for two on his controversial album, ("My Name Is", "Guilty Conscience" and "Role Model") in 1999. On these tracks, Eminem's over-the-top "Slim Shady" persona was contrasted with Dre's older, more sober, post-gangsta attitude to rap. On the song "Guilty Conscience", Dre and Eminem give conflicting advice to people faced with moral dilemmas, with Dre urging the song's characters to do the right thing, and Eminem urging them to give in to their darkest impulses. At the end of the track, Eminem begins to protest that Dre's "do right" advice is coming from the same man who had a physical altercation with TV host Dee Barnes in his younger, wilder years (the incident was later resolved out of court). At first, Dre protests that those were older times, but eventually sighs "fuck it" and sides with Eminem's "evil" reaction. Eminem's debut album initially sold over 3 million copies, making it Aftermath's most successful release at the time.

When Dr. Dre released his second solo album, 2001 (sometimes referred to by fans as '"The Chronic 2001"'- The planned title '"The Chronic 2000"' was scrapped after former label Death Row released a compilation disc under the same name) in the fall of 1999, it was an ostentatious return to his gangsta rap and g-funk roots. To prove the point, the first single "Still D.R.E." re-united Young with Death Row collaborator Snoop Dogg, and made renewed references to good marijuana and expensive cars, declaring "[I] still got love for the streets". Once again, the album featured about as much of Dre's voice as the voices of numerous collaborators, including Devin the Dude, Hittman, Snoop Dogg, Xzibit, Nate Dogg and Eminem. The album was highly successful, charting at number two on the Billboard charts and has since been certified six times platinum, thus reaffirming a recurring theme featured in its lyrics, stating that Dr. Dre was still a force to be reckoned with, despite the lack of major releases in the previous few years.

Eminem's Slim Shady LP was followed by the even more successful and controversial second release, The Marshall Mathers LP in 2000. The album featured angrier vocals from Eminem and took his "Slim Shady" persona to dizzying extremes (in a 2000 Spin magazine article, Eminem credited his improved vocals to Young's coaching). The album eventually went on to sell over 9 million copies in the U.S, and established Eminem as one of the biggest music stars in the world.

In 2000, Dre won the Grammy Award for Producer of the Year, for his work on "The Marshall Mathers LP" and 2001. The albums followed a new musical direction, characterized by high-pitched piano and string melodies over a deep and rich bassline. The style was also prominent in his following production work for other artists, including hits such as "Let Me Blow Ya Mind" by Eve and Gwen Stefani (whom he would produce again on the Stefani and Eve track "Rich Girl"), "Break Ya Neck" by Busta Rhymes, and "Family Affair" by Mary J. Blige.

By the time Eminem's third album The Eminem Show was released in 2002, Mathers was producing the bulk of his output himself. However, Eminem's association with Dr. Dre remained a large part of Eminem's identity in rap. The Eminem Show sold over 20 million copies worldwide and was an unqualified success.

In 2003, Dr. Dre and Eminem produced the major-label debut Get Rich or Die Tryin' for Queens rapper 50 Cent, featuring the Dre-produced hit single "In da Club", as a joint production between Aftermath, Eminem's boutique label Shady Records and Interscope. On the eve of its release Dre declared it to be one of the best rap albums made in the past ten years, an opinion the record-buying public enthusiastically agreed with. The album went on to sell over 11 million albums worldwide, establishing yet another major rap star under Aftermath and the Interscope umbrella.

In early 2005, Aftermath released rapper The Game's debut album The Documentary in conjunction with Interscope and rapper 50 Cent's boutique label G-Unit Records. Propelled by the lead single "How We Do" produced by Dr.Dre and Mike Elizondo and featuring 50 Cent, the album sold 586,000 copies in its first week and eventually sold over 2 million copies in the U.S., and over 5 million worldwide, establishing yet another superstar under the Aftermath label.

Shortly after, Aftermath/Shady released 50 Cent's second album The Massacre, which fared even better, selling over 1 million records in a short week (the album was rushed out to combat bootlegging). It eventually went on to sell over 5 million copies in the U.S alone, and went on to become the second highest-selling album of 2005 (it was initially declared the highest selling, however, singer Mariah Carey's 2005 release The Emancipation of Mimi continued to chart throughout early 2006 and eventually outstripped it by a small margin).

However, a falling-out between The Game and 50 Cent apparently created a rift at Aftermath. After being kicked out of 50 Cent's G-Unit group on-air during a February 2005 interview on Hot 97 (see references for details), the two parties engaged in what is arguably the biggest modern day feud. For more information please see G-Unit vs. The Game. To date, Dr. Dre has not spoken publicly about this matter, but for whatever reason The Game's second album, released November 14, 2006, and ironically titled Doctor's Advocate, was released on Geffen Records rather than on Dr. Dre's Aftermath label, and does not feature any production from him (in a XXL interview, The Game states that his public attacks and criticisms against Aftermath labelmate 50 Cent went against Dr. Dre's wishes, and is what led to the falling out). On the title track, The Game emotionally apologizes to Dr. Dre for disobeying his word. In a November 2006 interview with the website Allhiphop.com, The Game stated that he recently spoke with Dr.Dre via telephone, and that Dre congratulated him on his new album and wished him the best. He has also vowed that he will work with his mentor Dr. Dre again, although to date there are no quotes available from Dr. Dre himself that confirm either of these claims. Dr. Dre has also appeared in the movies The Wash and Training Day. He later stated that he does not intend to pursue a career in acting, however he did compose the music for Bad Boys 2. A song of his, "Bad Intentions" (featuring Knoc-Turn'Al) and produced by Mahogany, was featured on The Wash soundtrack. Dre also appeared on two other songs "On the Blvd." and "The Wash" along with his co-star Snoop Dogg.

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