Dr. Dre
This article is about the Los Angeles rapper and producer. For the New York radio and television presenter, see Doctor Dre.
André Romel "Dr. Dre" Young (born on
February 18,
1965 in
Los Angeles, California) is an influential
Grammy-Award winner
American record producer,
hip hop producer,
rapper,
actor and
record executive. He's also the founder and CEO of Aftermath Records.
Dre became famous as a member of iconic
gangsta rap group
N.W.A, continuing his success as a best-selling rapper, and most famously, the co-founder of
Death Row Records with
Suge Knight and the founder of
Aftermath Entertainment. He is most notable for having launched the careers of rap superstars
Snoop Dogg and
Eminem, and is widely regarded as hip hop's greatest producer, noted for advancing the use of the
synthesizers,
keyboards, and heavy
bass in his hip-hop beats. The artists on his sizeable Aftermath roster today include
multi-platinum artists such as
Eminem,
50 Cent, and more recently
Busta Rhymes,
Eve,
The Game and of course Dr. Dre himself.
Dr. Dre's albums
The Chronic and
2001 were both critical and commercial successes, and the former is credited with revolutionizing hip hop by beginning
West Coast G-funk's four-year dominance of mainstream rap (1992-96) and having a lasting influence in its sound.
Dr. Dre was born in
Los Angeles in 1965, and grew up in Compton. His parents divorced before he was born. Young grew up idolizing then-basketball star
Dr. J, and when he started DJing at parties and clubs (eventually landing an ongoing gig at the "Eve After Dark" club) he would DJ, sing and play keyboards under the name Dr. J in tribute to the star.[
1] When he got older, his mother married Warren Griffin Jr., father of future
West Coast rapper Warren G, who later introduced Dre to
Snoop Dogg.
Andre started his career as a DJ and poster boy for the
World Class Wreckin' Cru during the first half of the 1980s, taking the name Dr. Dre (from his first name, An
dre). It is stated in the World Class Wreckin' Cru track "Surgery" that Dr. Dre has Ph.D. in "mixology". In 1986, after Dre had begun to dip more into actual production of beats, he and fellow World Class Wreckin' Cru member
DJ Yella left the group to become two of the founding members of N.W.A. Dr. Dre enjoyed significant success with N.W.A. and
The D.O.C., raising his popularity greatly in the West Coast rap scene. Dre's rapping style and image was still very much evolving at the time, drastically different than the "gangsta rap" style he later would be known for. Take, for example, his verse on the song "Express Yourself" off the album
Straight Outta Compton:
Some drop science; while I'm droppin' English:Even if Yella, makes it
a-capella:I still express, yo, I don't smoke
weed or
cess:Cause it's known to give a brother brain damage:And brain damage on the mic don't manage - NUTHIN:but makin' a sucka and you equal:Don't be another sequel...
After a dispute with
Eazy-E, a founding member of N.W.A and
Ruthless Records, Dre left the group at the peak of its popularity in 1991 to form Death Row Records with
Suge Knight, introduced to him by The D.O.C.
Dr. Dre released his first solo single, "
Deep Cover," (also known as "187") in the spring of 1992. This was the beginning of his collaboration with rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg (who is now simply known as Snoop Dogg, following his departure from Death Row Records), a young man who had recorded some homemade tapes with Dre's stepbrother
Warren G. Warren G played Dre some of Snoop's
mixtapes and Dre arranged a meeting with the young man, beginning a lifelong association.
Snoop's voice appeared on Dre's 1992 debut album
The Chronic as much as Dre's did. Thanks to the single "
Nuthin' But a 'G' Thang," and hits like "
Let Me Ride" and "
Fuck Wit Dre Day (And Everybody's Celebratin')",
The Chronic became a multi-platinum seller, making it virtually impossible to hear mainstream hip-hop that wasn't affected in some way by Dr. Dre. Shortly after its release,
The Chronic became one of the best-selling hip hop albums in history. The song "Let Me Ride" won Dre the 1993 Grammy for
Best Rap Solo Performance. "The Chronic" was followed shortly by a string of multi-platinum albums from Dre's protégés, including Snoop Dogg's debut album
Doggystyle and
Warren G's
Regulate... G Funk Era.
The following year, Dr. Dre produced Snoop Dogg's 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.
In 1996, the song "
California Love", a highly successful collaboration with Death Row artist
Tupac Shakur, helped further establish Death Row and Dr. Dre as a major force in the music industry. By the end of the year, however, the success of Death Row had taken a reverse turn, following the death of
Tupac Shakur and
racketeering charges against
Suge Knight. Foreseeing the label's collapse, Dr. Dre left Death Row to form his own
Aftermath Entertainment label.
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 Dre suggested that he is moving on to another level of music and lifestyle. While going platinum, the album was considered a critical disappointment by Dre's standards, failing to raise much talk of the label. In 1997, Dre produced several tracks on
Nas, Foxy Brown, AZ, and Nature Present The Firm: The Album; while also going platinum, the album met with similarly negative reviews from critics.
The turning point for Aftermath came in 1998, when Dre signed underground
Detroit rapper
Eminem to his label, producing his controversial album
The Slim Shady LP in 1999, followed by the even more successful and controversial
The Marshall Mathers LP in 2000. Though he was heavily involved in the latter, producing five beats with collaborator
Mel-Man, by the time
The Eminem Show was released in 2002, Eminem was producing the bulk of his output himself. However,
Encore featured substantially increased production involvement from Dre.
He released his second solo album,
Dr. Dre 2001 (sometimes referred to by fans as
"The Chronic 2001"), or more often simply '2001' in 1999. 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, thus reaffirming a recurring theme featured in its lyrics, stating that Dre is still a force to be reckoned with, despite the lack of major releases in the previous few years.
In 2000, Dr. 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, characterised 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.
Dr. Dre has also appeared in the movies
Set It Off,
The Wash and
Training Day, though he later stated that he does not intend to pursue a career in acting. A song of his, "Bad Intentions" (featuring
Knoc-Turn'Al) and produced by Mahogany, was featured on the
soundtrack to
The Wash. Dre also appeared on two other songs "On the Blvd." and "The Wash" along with his co-star Snoop Dogg.
In 2002, 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."
The release of
Detox, which was to be Dre's final solo album, was planned for 2004. The project was declared to be cancelled for a while, as Dre decided to put all his effort into producing the artists on his
Aftermath label, including Eminem, 50 Cent, Eve, The Game, Stat Quo, and Busta Rhymes. However, in November 2004, Dre and
Interscope confirmed that
Detox was still in the works and is currently scheduled to be released in late 2006. On Eminem's song "
Encore", featuring Dre himself, Eminem mentions that "we gon' make Dre do it."
Currently, Dre is working on
Raekwon's
Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II and
Bone Thugs-N-Harmony's next album. He and Busta Rhymes just completed Busta's Aftermath debut The Big Bang. He will also reunite with Snoop Dogg to produce several records on the latter's next album,
The Blue Carpet Treatment, which will be released in 2006.
Dr. Dre's son is also a rapper named
Hood Surgeon (born Curtis Young, on December 15, 1981). He has another son named Marcel Young, who is nine years younger than Curtis.
Also, Dre can be seen at the end of the video "I Love My Bitch [Chick]" by
Busta Rhymes.
Early work
Dre's production technique has evolved considerably over the span of his career, and has often been influential to the sound of other producers, especially those from the West Coast. Early on, while working with the World Class Wrecking Cru, he was still strictly a DJ--though witnesses from the time cite that he had a good musical ear. After beginning to make actual beats with N.W.A. in the mid-1980s, often co-producing beats with
DJ Yella, his style was still steeped with the characteristics of the time: a very regular meter, with heavy drums and thumping bass. His backings were largely funk-influenced and usually very uptempo, ideally dance and party music.
Later in his tenure with N.W.A., he began a series of three albums produced almost entirely by himself (Dre had and has a habit of co-producing beats with another artist, usually leading to allegations that he has ghost producers).
The D.O.C.'s 1989 debut
No One Can Do It Better featured roughly the same production as N.W.A.'s albums had, but with more differences in tempo (both faster and slower tracks), and Dre delved into reggae and rock music on some of the songs.
G-funk
The second of this trio,
The Chronic, was considered the flagship of
G-Funk. Similarly funk-fueled and alternately rugged and smooth,
The Chronic and other songs he did for soundtracks at the time (
Murder Was the Case,
Above the Rim and
Deep Cover) utilized heavy samples from
George Clinton and
Funkadelic. Snoop's ensuing album
Doggystyle (that would be the final project thus far that Dre produced completely for an artist besides himself) featured a smoother and more laid-back style of G-Funk, shifted to suit Snoop's style. Doggystyle borrows beats, samples and quotes from the movie Superfly, and the soundtrack by Curtis Mayfield.
After this, Dre produced two songs on
2Pac's Death Row debut
All Eyez On Me ("California Love" and "Can't C Me") which would be the last overtly G-Funk tracks he would release.
2001 and beyond
When he released the
Presents...The Aftermath compilation, Dre was in transition, somewhere between G-funk and the spacey synthesizers and organs of
2001, his sophomore release. That album (produced mainly with the help of
Mel-Man) still had thumping bass and hard drums, but also heavily used synthesizers and organs instead of his previous flutes and funk samples.
Production would continue in this vein for four years on beats such as "The Watcher pt. 2" for Jay-Z, "Truck Volume" for Busta Rhymes, and "Kill You" for Eminem. On
50 Cent's major-label debut
Get Rich Or Die Tryin', Dre experimented with dynamic violins ("
In Da Club") and worked the sounds of a gun being cocked and fired into "Heat." Violins and pianos have played more of a role in his recent productions for the projects of his artists, most notably for
The Game's
The Documentary and Busta Rhymes' latest release
The Big Bang; Dre did another track on that album experimenting with sounds similar to the beat for "Heat," this time working a shovel-digging-a-grave sound into the beat for "Legend of the Fall Offs." Dre is now working on an album with fellow west-coast rapper,
The Game, called
The Doctor's Advocate, it is set to be released on November 7th of 2006.
As a performer
As a producer
With N.W.A
N.W.A. and the Posse,
Ruthless Records, 1987.
Straight Outta Compton, Ruthless Records, 1988.
100 Miles and Runnin' , Ruthless Records, 1990.
Efil4zaggin, Ruthless Records, 1991.
Solo
Compilations
Concrete Roots Hitman Music, 1994 Exec. Prod.
DJ Flash; #43 US, Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums 14
Greatest Hits, Central Station , 1996
Dr. Dre Presents...The Aftermath,
Aftermath Records, 1996; #6 US, Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums 3
First Round Knock Out, Triple X, 1996 â€" collection of early recording and Dre-produced material; #52 US, Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums 18
Back 'N The Day, Blue Dolphin, 1996 â€" Budget-priced compilation of mid-1990s remixes of pre-N.W.A Dre tracks
Maximum Dr. Dre, Orchard, 2001
Chronicle: Best of the Work, Death Row Records, 2002; #172 UK
Greatest Hits V.2, Central Station, 2004
Production
*Bobby Jimmy And The Critters -
Back And Proud,
Macola Record Co., (1987)
(Producer, song: "Milkshake")*Bobby Jimmy And The Critters -
Bobby Jimmy You A Fool - The Best Of Bobby Jimmy & The Critters,
K-Tel, (1990)
(Remixing, song: "Ugly Knuckle Butt")*
C.I.A. -
My Posse (1987), Macola Record Co., (Demo EP)
(Executive Producer)*Eazy-E -
Eazy-Duz-It,
Ruthless/Priority, 1988
(2x Platinum) (Producer)
*N.W.A - Straight Outta Compton Ruthless/Priority, 1988 (2x Platinum) (Producer & Rapper).
*N.W.A - 100 Miles and Runnin' Ruthless/Priority, 1989 (Platinum) (Producer & Rapper).
*N.W.A - Efil4zaggin Ruthless/Priority, 1991 (Platinum (Producer & Rapper).
*The D.O.C - No One Can Do It Better, Ruthless/Priority, 1989 (Platinum) (Producer)
*Jimmy Z - Muzical Madness, Ruthless/Priority, 1991 (Executive producer/Producer)
*Snoop Doggy Dogg - Doggystyle, Death Row/Interscope, 1993 (4x Platinum) (Producer)
*Nas - It Was Written, Columbia Records, 1996 (2x Platinum) (Producer)(Performer "Nas Is Coming")
*2Pac - All Eyez on Me, Death Row/Interscope 1996 (9x Platinum) (Producer)
*The Firm - Nas, Foxy Brown, AZ, and Nature Present The Firm: The Album, Aftermath/Interscope, 1997 (Platinum) (Producer)
*Nine Inch Nails - The Fragile, Nothing/Interscope, 1999 (2x Platinum) (Mixing assistance, song: "Even Deeper")
*Snoop Dogg - No Limit Top Dogg, No Limit Records, (1999), (Producer, songs: "Buck 'Em", "Bitch Please", "Just Dippin'")
*Eminem - The Slim Shady LP, Aftermath/Interscope, 1999 (4x Platinum) (Executive producer/Producer)
*Eminem - The Marshall Mathers LP, Aftermath/Interscope, 2000 (9x Platinum) (Executive producer/Producer)
*Snoop Dogg - Tha Last Meal, Priority Records, (2000), (Producer, songs: "Intro", "Hennessey N Buddah", "True Lies", "Lay Low")
*Ice Cube - War & Peace - Volume 2 (The Peace Disc), Priority, 2000 (Gold) (Producer, song:"Hello")
*D12 - Devil's Night, 2001 Shady/Interscope (2x Platinum) (Producer)
*Eminem - The Eminem Show, Shady/Aftermath/Interscope, 2002 (8x Platinum) (Executive producer/Producer)
*50 Cent - Get Rich or Die Tryin', Shady/Aftermath/Interscope, 2003 (6x Platinum) (Executive producer/Producer)
*Obie Trice - Cheers, 2003 Shady/Interscope (Platinum) (Producer)
*G-Unit - Beg for Mercy, 2003 G-Unit/Interscope (2x Platinum) (Producer)
*D12 - D12 World, 2004 Shady/Interscope (2x Platinum) (Producer)
*Eminem - Encore, Shady/Aftermath/Interscope, 2004 (5x Platinum) (Executive producer/Producer)
*The Game - The Documentary, G-Unit/Aftermath/Interscope, 2005 (2x Platinum) (Executive producer/Producer)
*50 Cent - The Massacre, G-Unit/Shady/Aftermath/Interscope, 2005 (5x Platinum) (Executive producer/Producer)
*50 Cent - Get Rich or Die Tryin' (soundtrack) G-Unit/Interscope, 2005 (2x Platinum) (Producer)
*Eminem - Curtain Call: The Hits, Shady/Aftermath/Interscope, 2005 (2x Platinum) (Executive producer/Producer)
*Busta Rhymes - The Big Bang, Aftermath/Interscope, 2006 (Executive producer/Producer)
*Bone Thugs-N-Harmony - The Bone Thugs Story, Full Surface/Interscope, 2006 (Producer)
*Nas - Hip-Hop is Dead, Ill Will/Def Jam, 2006 (Producer)
*Snoop Dogg - The Blue Carpet Treatment, Doggystyle, (2006) (Producer)
*The Game - The Doctor's Advocate, Geffen, 2006 (Executive producer/Producer)
*Raekwon - Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II, Universial, 2006 (Producer))
*Stat Quo - Statlanta, Shady/Aftermath/Interscope, 2006 (Executive producer/Producer)Mixtapes
Detox - Millennium Of Aftermath (by DJ Rukiz), Pickwick, 2005. #183 UK
Pretox 2005
Dretox 2005
Look Out For Detox
Dr. Dre 2006 2006Singles
Featured Singles
* Official Site
* Aftermath Records
* Aftermath Entertainment
* Dr. Dre Productions C.V. on Dubcc.com
* Rap Samples FAQ
