Original subtitles

Whenever we go in the studio,

I try to make something much better

than the last thing I created.

You know what I'm saying?

So there, in my opinion,

a lot better than the last shit I produced.

You know what I'm saying?

It's just that. That's just something that I believe in.

I believe in artists or producer or whoever

should try to top themselves every time they go out there,

and that's what I try to do.

No other rap artist in the world of hip-hop

has constructed a successful and solid reputation

as Dr. Dre.

The control is in the studio where he actually,

he calls the shots.

Renowned for being one of the founding fathers

of gangster rap.

He has been revered for bringing innovation

and slick technique to the world of hip-hop

since the late eighties.

Dre's place in the history of hip-hop is unarguable.

He's clearly one of the most important producers

and one of the most important creative forces

that the music's ever seen.

He enriched the genre

through his stern commitment

and innate ability to recognize musical talent.

If you don't have that sound

that just makes him say, "yay,"

you're gonna keep making hooks. The hook's not right.

Okay, we need you to change the verse.

Okay, we need to add this. He's like that.

Dr. Dre's clinical approach to making music,

coupled with his notorious perfectionist ethic,

has gained respect in the studio, divided music critics,

and more often than not, left fans thirsting for more.

He's been working on detox for 15 years

and he still doesn't feel it's good enough.

So it remains to be seen

if it's ever gonna see the light of day.

With only three studio albums of his own,

punctuated by long interludes.

The balance between Dr. Dre's science as a producer

and the artistic impact of his own musical evolution

still fascinates to this day.

If you ask a group of people what hustle is,

you're probably gonna get a lot of different answers.

What I think, is doing whatever you need to do

to become successful.

Discover his driven journey

from the depths of the ghetto

to the heights of the studio

Throughout a self-selected career spanning over two decades,

Dre has become one of the most

influential producers of all time.

And in recent years,

Dre's meteoric rise to the top of hip-hop,

encouraged his entrepreneurial spirit

to venture into building his own commercial

billion dollar business.

Along with record executive Jimmy Iovine,

the two founded Beats Electronics,

a headphone and speaker brand.

This established Dre's universal influence

across the corporate business infrastructure

of the industry at present.

And he is now one of the richest rappers

in the music industry

with an estimated net worth of 850 million.

In the current era of hip-hop,

no producer is as innovative, as composed

and as polished as Dr. Dre.

A self-described perfectionist,

Dr. Dre creates beats and songs

that not only glamorize the gangsta lifestyle,

but also warn against it.

Acknowledging hard work and self-determination

is the main motivators behind his success.

Pairing this with drums, distinct keyboard riffs,

and a magnificent mix,

he has built a benchmark sound that many beat makers

aim for when mixing down their music.

Critics have held him

as one of the most valuable figures in the hip-hop world

that aspiring artists should look up to.

Dre is now using the commercial success

of his latest album, "Compton,"

to support and fund a creative center

in his gang ridden hometown

that has catapulted him to stardom.

After 16 years, "Compton," the album,

replaced the abandoned "Detox" project

with a rich soundtrack of uproar,

self-sacrifice, and strong will.

Inspired by the forthcoming N.W.A. biopic

that takes Andre Young back to the area code

that made his name.

Well, Dr. Dre's name when he was born

was Andre Romelle Young.

He's actually the child of two singers.

Both his mother and father were singers.

They split up and when he was a young boy still,

he was living with his mother,

they moved around an awful lot.

At one point, they ended up in a very dodgy

part of Los Angeles called Compton,

where he was very much exposed to the kind of gangster life

that he would later on, of course,

go on to write about in his music.

So the first person I like to thank is my mom.

I mean, a lot of people don't know this,

but my mom was pregnant with me at the age 15.

Man. She was always told by family, friends, neighbors,

or whatever, she's gonna ruin her life and mine and, um...

Give me a second.

So throughout my entire childhood,

being a success was always embedded in my head.

Steering clear of the gang and gun violence

that was rife in his hometown.

The young Dr. Dre eventually dropped out of school

to pursue his career as a DJ, rapper,

and later, the world's most influential hip-hop producer.

Dr. Dre's initial flirtation with beats

started in his local nightclub "Eve After Dark,"

which he would often revisit

to watch DJs and rappers perform live.

Dr. Dre himself later went on to become a DJ in the club

where he also met aspiring rapper, Antoine Carraby,

later known as DJ Yella of N.W.A...

In 1984, they formed a musical group,

World Class Wreckin' Cru.

The group would become an icon

of the electronic hip-hop scene

that dominated the early 1980s West Coast hip-hop.

Dre and Yella recorded several demos in the studio,

and in their first recording session,

they recorded a song called "Surgery."

The release of this first single

prominently featuring Dr. Dre on the turntable,

would also become the group's first hit,

selling 50,000 copies within the Compton area.

Now this is his first ever group.

This is before N.W.A.,

and this is called World Class Wreckin' Cru.

He's a really young guy,

he's actually a teenager at the time,

and in this video you can see him on the decks

in like a red, shiny, almost looks plastic suit.

The lead singers in gold Lame with no shirt on,

dancing around, and they look like a kind of cheesy,

tacky version of the Four Tops.

And it looks very Soul Train, it looks very dated,

certainly a far cry from the image

that he would later project,

but it's really fun to see where this global,

international billionaire superstar started out.

♪ Dr. Dre, Dr. Dre, Dr. Dre, Dr ♪

♪ Bom, bom, bom, bom ♪

♪ Bom, bom, bom, bom ♪

♪ Bom, bom, ba bom bom, bom ♪

♪ Ba Bom bom, bom, bom bom, bom ♪

♪ Ahh ahh ♪

Dre in the World Class Wreckin' Cru,

I never really listened to them that much, but Dre was like,

you know, major R&B, and then suddenly,

he became this guy who is behind the boards.

As Dre started performing

with the world class Wreckin' Cru

at parties and clubs around South Central Los Angeles.

It wasn't long until he started to become

fully involved in hip-hop.

In 1986, he met Ice Cube and the two rappers

began writing songs for Ruthless Records,

a label that was established

by former self confessed drug dealer, Easy-E,

and businessman Jerry Heller.

When Easy tried to give one of the duo songs,

"Boyz-n-the-Hood" to HBO,

a group signed to Ruthless, and was turned down,

Easy teamed with Dre and Cube forming N.W.A.,

an acronym for Niggas With Attitude.

With established music producer Jerry Heller behind them,

N.W.A. were destined to take the hip-hop world by storm.

He had a belief in them that what they were doing was

part of the same sort of rebel rock and roll tradition

of the artist that he knew and that he'd grown up with

and worked with perhaps in some cases.

And he felt that what they were doing was important

and also, felt that there was money to be made there.

And you put him alongside Easy, Andre and Ice Cube

and Ren, Yella as well,

and you have something that's greater

than the sum of its parts.

They released their first album in 1987,

and a year later, Dre hit the World with real hardcore rap

when he and N.W.A. stamped onto the music scene

with their debut studio album,

"Straight Outta Compton," a vicious hardcore record.

It became an underground hit,

that received no support from mainstream radio,

the press or MTV.

People tend to think of N.W.A.

as the foundation stone of gangster rap.

They probably weren't the first people to do that.

Ice-T had had a record out before then.

Schoolly D over in Philadelphia had been making records

that had what we would now think of as gangster rap content

before N.W.A. came about.

But N.W.A. really took it from being

something that was off to one side and in the margins

and made it a really huge mainstream thing.

Rolling Stone Magazine described

the N.W.A. record, as a hardship documentary

of LA Ghetto Life that includes gang bangs,

drive by shootings and police sweeps.

The group portrayed themselves as

underground street reporters and glamorized street life,

militant resistance to authority

and blatant sexist violence

through their hard hitting lyrics

and provocative performance.

I had some problems with N.W.A.,

I had some problems with them.

They were the first ones to use the N word on a rap record,

in the way they used it.

I remember the first time I heard "Straight Outta Compton,"

I was shocked. I was totally shocked.

I couldn't believe anyone would actually

put that on a record,

and I didn't realize that all they were doing was

kind of, reprogramming people.

They were, they were ready,

they were determined to reprogram people

into an extreme ghetto mindset.

You are now about to witness

the strength of street knowledge.

♪ Straight outta Compton ♪

♪ Crazy motherfucker named Ice Cube ♪

♪ From the gang called Niggas With Attitude ♪

♪ When I'm called off, I got a sawed off ♪

♪ Squeeze the trigger and bodies are hauled off ♪

♪ You too, boy, if ya fuck with me ♪

♪ The police are gonna have to come and get me ♪

♪ Off yo ass, that's how I'm goin out ♪

Well, the video for "Straight Outta Compton"

really shows the guys walking around Compton,

which is where they're from,

and you see Ice Cube, you know, angry, angry, as per usual,

talking about the police, come and get us, you know,

and just being really angry.

You see a map of Compton at one point

where they're kind of showing their neighborhood,

they're proud of their neighborhood.

Despite the fact that Compton has a terrible reputation

in terms of crime and and poverty.

These guys are saying, "there's more to it than that,

and we're from Compton and we're proud of it."

And it's a very low budget video.

I mean, you see them basically

walking around their neighborhood.

It doesn't look like there's a high production value

on this yet. But you have to remember,

the guys weren't massive, huge,

international, multi selling artists at this point yet.

After releasing the single

"Straight Outta Compton,"

N.W.A. went on to release

one of their most notorious hits, "Fuck The Police,"

which explored the political tension between black youth

and police officials, and was an instant success.

The song provoked the FBI

to write to N.W.A.'s record company

about the lyrics expressing disapproval

and arguing that the song misrepresented police.

The widespread attention triggered

by the song's controversial content

was indicative of the group's growing universal popularity.

The music, the lyrics, the attitude of this band

at that time was angry.

It was angry, it was frustrated,

and it was against the system.

And this was the first time that we saw such

blatant anti-establishment in the mainstream.

In fact, there was virtually no radio play for this band

at the very beginning, because radio stations

were afraid to play these songs.

There were so many curse words,

and other things that were deemed to be dangerous.

They didn't dare put it on their playlist,

but despite that, the public went mad for it.

They became massively successful.

And I think the song "Express Yourself,"

even though if you watch the video,

what you're seeing is people expressing themselves

through crime and, you know, running from the police,

not necessarily a model of good society,

but if you listen to the lyrics,

it talks about not doing drugs,

it talks about causes brain damage.

It talks about expressing yourself.

It is, I believe it's a very positive message in some ways

because it's encouraging, in this case,

most likely young black people in difficult neighborhoods

where there's racial tension and poverty

to express themselves and in a way,

finding an outlet through outlet through music,

which would be something as an alternative to the crime

and the gangs that they see all around them.

In the video for "Express Yourself," you see the members

of the group kind of running from the police

and you see what's going on is not really a happy picture,

but what you should understand,

and I think what they're trying to show the world

is that this is their reality. This is their life.

And for young people growing up in these neighborhoods,

this is what they see every day.

♪ All you got to do now, express yourself ♪

♪ I'm expressin' with my full capabilities ♪

♪ And now I'm livin' in correctional facilities ♪

♪ 'Cause some don't agree with how I do this ♪

♪ I get straight, meditate like a Buddhist ♪

♪ I'm droppin' flavor, my behavior is hereditary ♪

♪ But my technique is very necessary ♪

♪ Blame it on Ice Cube, because he says it gets funky ♪

♪ When you got a subject and a predicate ♪

Although "Straight Outta Compton"

brought blockbuster success to N.W.A.,

all was not well within the group.

The famous point at which the group basically

starts to disintegrate

is when Cube is presented with a contract

and a check for a six figure sum

that he can cash when he signs the contract

and he decides not to sign the contract

and then other people get involved.

Cube begins to use N.W.A.'s press agent as his manager

and extricates himself from the group situation.

Cube departed in late 1989

amid many financial disagreements,

although Easy seemed to be the undisputed leader

following cube's departure,

the music production was in Dre's hands.

N.W.A. went on to release another record without Ice Cube,

but was N.W.A. still the same

without their lyrical mastermind.

They made that record without Ice Cube

and that put paid to their career. It did.

I reviewed that record and man, I gave it three out of 10,

and in retrospect I wasn't fair, but you know,

it had some really horrible tracks on it.

"Findum, Fuckum & Flee," you know, things like that.

A track about the killing of a prostitute,

all sorts of things like that.

They really, you know, they thought,

"okay, we've done 'Straight Outta Compton'

and Ice Cubes left. Oh, we're up shit's creek,

what can we do?

We're going to push the envelope out further."

And they did.

And it was terrible, at the time to hear it.

But now, if you listen to that record now,

it's a classic record.

We can thank Dr. Dre.

On both the 1990 EP, "100 Miles And Runnin'"

and the 1991 album, "Niggaz4Life."

Dre produced dense, funky sonic landscapes

that still kept N.W.A. at the top of the charts.

While the group was at the peak of its popularity in 1991,

Dre began to make efforts to leave the crew,

especially after he was charged with assaulting Dee Barnes.

In 1991, Dr. Dre was at a music industry party

when he assaulted a female television journalist

with Fox News.

He didn't like the way she reported Ice Cubes leaving N.W.A.

He didn't like what she said, and according to her,

he grabbed her and slammed her face against a wall

several times near a stairwell.

Later on, a very unapologetic Dr. Dre at the time said,

he like fucking threw her down the stairs.

It was an aggressive, unacceptable

display of violence towards women,

that Dr. Dre would later go on to say

that he deeply regretted.

But unfortunately, there were several incidences

of violence against women by Dr. Dre

around this time in his career.

A former girlfriend, a singer Michel'le

accused him of physical abuse during their time together.

And a former label mate, called Tairrie B

also claimed that he assaulted her at a post Grammy party.

So there were several incidences

where Dr. Dre was accused of violence towards women.

And I think the fact that

this wasn't shown in the film "Street Outta Compton"

caused a fair amount of controversy,

particularly from women's groups

who felt that it had been whitewashed from the story,

and as if in some way excused.

Dr. Dre has been very public and very contrite

in recent days, actually recent months,

where he has said very publicly and in magazines

like "Rolling Stone" and also in the "New York Times,"

how much he deeply regrets what happened,

how he's no longer the man he was,

and how he will remember for the rest of his life,

the mistakes he made in his past.

There's no question that Dr. Dre is not the man

that did those things, but unfortunately,

they very much are a part of his history.

After the controversy

of Dr. Dre's abuse had been exposed,

N.W.A. hit the headlines with yet more negative press.

Over the next few years,

Dre and Easy engaged in a highly publicized feud,

which included both rappers

attacking each other on their solo albums.

Dre left N.W.A. in 1992

and paired up with Suge Knight

to create Death Row Records label.

According to legend, Knight held N.W.A.s manager

at gunpoint and threatened to kill him

if he refused to let Dre out of his contract.

Dr. Dre felt gangs to rap was over.

He felt like that kind of angry,

frustrated theme had come to a close.

He wanted to do something different.

The members of N.W.A. disagreed with him

and they parted ways.

When Dr. Dre went over to Suge Knight's label,

he started G-funk, which was a really different sound.

It always had a much stronger melody and one or two notes

that would kind of repeat all the way through.

It wasn't so much shouting and it was more almost

kind of singing and it was certainly more

musically based than the other was.

But additionally, it wasn't quite so angry.

You know, you had songs like,

"Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang" and "California Love,"

which are actually positive uplifting.

"California love" is like an anthem to California.

And these were early songs that Dre produced

in that kind of G-funk vibe.

His debuted "The Chronic,"

instantly became the overarching force

in mid nineties hip-hop.

Most rap records started to then imitated sound

and his productions for Snoop Doggy Dogg

and Blackstreet were instant massive hits.

One thing that you can't take away from "The Chronic,"

is that it took a sound and made it hugely successful,

popularized it globally,

and it did have a transformative impact on hip-hop

that was to follow.

It's generally regarded as the record

that marks the end of hip-hop's Golden Age.

Some people feel that the Golden Age begins in about 1987

in New York with certain records that that established

a gritty sound based on James Brown

and similar funk samples.

And that the, this period of the music

sort of mushrooming creativity.

Where there's constant evolution and constant changes

in lyrics, styles, production techniques,

attitudes to the way the music is made.

That kind of reaches its zenith in in 1992,

at which "The Chronic" marks the sort of the end point

at which hip-hop is established now

as a mainstream pop music genre.

And the emphasis tends to shift away a little bit

from this urge to create something new and dynamic

and forward moving all the time

and starts to become more about an industry capitalizing

on what it knows it already can sell.

On "The chronic," he had all the south central rappers

who mattered at the time, on the record.

In the spring of 1992,

Dre released his first solo single, "Deep Cover,"

a record that was going to leave an indelible print

on the G-funk sound.

It cemented the launch of a strong collaboration

with rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg,

who Dre discovered through his stepbrother Warren G.

Thanks to the singles, "Nuthin' but a "G" Thang," "Dre Day,"

as well as the release of his collaboration

with Tupac on "California Love."

Dre was now the number one producer in the industry.

The video for "California Love,"

which of course features Tupac Shakur as well,

shows Dre and Tupac in these kind of

metallic leather ensembles,

which looks very "Mad Max" and kind of apocalyptic in style.

And you see them singing about, really California,

which is where they're both from,

and they talk about every part.

They talk about San Diego to the Bay, meaning San Francisco,

and they talk about the kind of the way California parties.

♪ In the city, the city of Compton ♪

♪ We keep it rockin', we keep it rockin' ♪

♪ Now let me welcome everybody to the Wild Wild West ♪

♪ A state that's untouchable like Eliot Ness ♪

♪ The track hits your eardrum like a slug to your chest ♪

♪ Pack a vest for your Jimmy in the city of sex ♪

♪ We in that sunshine state where the bomb-ass hemp be ♪

♪ The state where you never find a dance floor empty ♪

♪ And pimps be on a mission for them greens ♪

♪ Lean mean money-making-machines servin' fiends ♪

Dre directed several of the videos

for the singles from "The Chronic."

"Nuthin' but a "G" Thang" was a very influential video.

It was the perfect video for the track.

It just shows a bunch of guys hanging out,

having a party in a good time

because that's what the song's about.

I think one of the things

that gets missed about that record,

and one of the things that struck me at the time

was that in many respects that was the,

the Black American equivalent of what Kurt Cobain was doing

with "Smells Like Teen Spirit" for White America.

it's not a record that says, "you should try

and live this life because it's really cool."

It's just a record that says,

"here's the life we're living."

And the video for G Thang reinforced those themes

of the lyrics of the song.

It's aimless. It's directionless,

but everyone seems to be having a good time

despite the relative accrual of wealth.

It was very down home, it was very earthy.

It wasn't particularly something that you would choose to

pattern your own life on, but it was kind of saying,

"if this is what you've got, then isn't that enough?"

And that was quite a positive thing.

Quite an empowering thing for people to hear and to see.

♪ Yeah and that's realer than Real-Deal Holyfield ♪

♪ And now you hookers and hoes know how I feel ♪

♪ Well, if it's good enough to get broke off a proper chunk ♪

♪ I'll take a small piece of some of that funky stuff ♪

♪ It's like this and like that and like this and a ♪

♪ It's like that and like this and like that and a ♪

♪ It's like this and like that and like this and a ♪

♪ Dre, creep to the mic like a phantom ♪

♪ Well, I'm peepin' and I'm creepin' and I'm creepin' ♪

♪ But I damn near got caught 'cause my beeper kept beepin' ♪

Dr. Dre is a fantastic, phenomenal producer

and one of his greatest skills

is his ability to talent spot.

Dre discovered Snoop Dogg and turned him really into

the mega global superstar that he became,

"Nuthin' but a "G" Thang" really highlights

Snoop's breathy, almost kind of lyrical voice

and the way he raps and rhymes.

And Dre saw innately that he was onto some superstar talent

and highlighted that in the song.

When Dre found Snoop,

he obviously understood that here was, potentially,

somebody who could really take the idea of gangster rap

and translate it to a much wider audience.

There was something about Snoop as a character,

as a personality that you can hear on the records,

even in the way that he rapped

right at the beginning of his career.

Very sing-songy, very lilting.

He came across in a very engaging,

very innocent sounding kind of a way.

Yeah, he was talking about some really dark

and difficult things.

Dre understood intuitively

exactly what Snoop would be able to achieve.

And you put that voice and that style

along with Dre's approach to music at the time,

and you've got a very potent combination.

And the two of them together made records

that were obviously always likely to achieve wide appeal,

but they took something that in terms of its content,

what was very challenging and very difficult

and they made it into pop music, and that was unprecedented.

I interviewed Dr. Dre himself on the tour bus

on the way to the concert at Brixton Academy.

And Dr. Dre, he was more forthright.

He's like, boom.

Even though on the bus to, he too,

while he was trying to talk in a forthright manner,

the others, you know, it wasn't just Snoop Dogg,

it was a whole load of Death Row people

and people affiliated with them.

They were really merciless.

I think they were trying to put Dr. Dre off

so he he would say something out of color,

they wanted them to talk about women.

Let's just put it nicely, women.

that's what they want, because of the nature of the albums.

They wanted it to be as realistic in that sense as possible,

as if the actual characters on the record

are the same as their projections.

They're not, they're not.

Dre's really chill. And Snoop Dogg, too. Chill.

Not only did he produce

Snoop's 1993 debut, "Doggystyle,"

but he orchestrated several film soundtracks

and helmed hit records,

such as Black Street's "No Diggity," among others,

including a hit reunion with Ice Cube,

"Natural Born Killaz."

During this entire time, Dre released no new records,

but he didn't need to.

All of Death Row was under his control

and most of his peers imitated his style.

The Death Row dynasty held strong until the spring of 1996,

when Dre grew frustrated with Knight's aggressive ways.

Dre left the label in the summer of 1996 to form Aftermath,

when he declared that gangster rap was dead.

While he was the target of many taunts

from his former Death Row colleagues,

their sales slipped by 1997 and Knight was imprisoned

on racketeering charges by the end of the year.

Dre's first various artist compilation album,

"Dr. Dre Presents: The Aftermath,"

received considerable media attention,

but the record did not have the same impact

as his hit single "Been There Done That."

Even though the album wasn't a massive hit,

the collapse of Death row in 1997

proved that Dre's instincts were correct at the time.

The turning point for Aftermath came in 1998

when Jimmy Iovine, the head of Aftermaths

parent label Interscope, suggested that Dre signed Eminem,

a white rapper from Detroit.

Well one of the best stories

I think about Dre and Eminem's collaboration

was at the very beginning,

the first time that Eminem actually came into the studio,

Dre had called in some of his friends to hear

this new guy that he had talent spotted

and wanted them to take a listen to.

Eminem walked in at the time

and didn't really look the part to say the least.

At the time, Marshall Mathers had no money.

He'd been wearing an outfit like a jumpsuit,

which was bright yellow that he'd been given

by some promotional company.

Had no money to buy any other clothes,

so had been wearing it for like a week. The same ensemble.

He stunk, he looked ridiculous.

One of the guys sitting there

said he looked like Tweety Bird

and they were all laughing at him.

These were really serious rap producers

who thought he looked like a joke.

They called him Tweety Bird.

But as soon as Eminem went behind the mic,

got in the studio and started rapping,

you could have heard a pin drop in that room.

The guys were all like, "whoa!"

And they immediately recognized the incredible talent

that Dr. Dre had spotted.

When you first met.

This is a question for both of you.

What did you think of each other, honestly?

I thought he was a fuckin' dick

and he probably thought worse of me.

I thought he was, I thought he was Tweety Bird.

- No, 'cause he had this real- - Fuck you.

He had this real bright fuckin' yellow sweatsuit on.

Man, if I hear one more thing

about that goddamn sweatsuit.

I had this yellow outfit on when I first met Dre,

it was like this outfit

that a clothing company had given me.

And I didn't have money like some people had at the time,

you know, so I was going on a week wearing it,

so it was actually turning kind of green,

but he called me a banana when he met me so,

it was on from there.

Dre produced three songs

and provided vocals for two

on Eminem's successful and controversial debut album,

"The Slim Shady" LP released in 1999.

The Dr. Dre produced lead single from that album,

"My Name Is," brought Eminem to public attention

for the first time.

"Hi, my name is." How'd you come up with that concept?

I figured like my name was,

and then I came up with it.

Now Dre like that was, it was really ill

because the first day me and Dre got down together,

we did three songs,

and "My Name Is" was the second song that we did

and we was in there. It was like

he played me in the beat and it was like instantly,

I just started saying it like, you know,

the beat started talking to me like," hi, my name."

I started like doing the hook

and he looked at me kind of funny, like,

"you gonna use that as a hook?" You know?

And the more I started saying it,

the engineers in the studio started saying it,

you know what I'm saying?

Everybody was like, "oh, hi, my name is, my name is."

And I was like, "yo, that's him right there."

So I just went in and like freestyled some verses

and then I hadn't had him wrote yet

and just went home that same night

and just wrote them and then came back the next day.

Came back and just.

"The Slim Shady" LP experienced immense success

reaching number two on the Billboard 200

and received universal acclaim from critics.

Reviving Aftermath's commercial ambitions and viability.

The other thing that that often gets forgotten about

is that Eminem happened along

at a point where Dre really needed to find him.

Over the years, he's made records that have been a lot less

artistically valid or successful

than appeared on that Aftermath compilation album,

but it wasn't this super stratospheric hit.

Now who knows, if Eminem hadn't come along

to find his mojo again, if you like,

to get back to the top of his game, commercially speaking,

would we be talking today about this long career?

Would we have had the 2001 album? Would we have had Compton?

Would we have had this wait for Detox?

Would that narrative have been the same?

I very much doubt it.

So the idea of some new blood coming into the mix,

a new discovery, a sort of a new Snoop, if you like.

Someone who will come along and take that role in his life,

be be a muse for him musically

and who will also have the same relationship back with him

and who will be able to come out of his beats

and take them into some other place.

It was absolutely vital that it happened

at the time that it did.

Dre, to be honest, was trying to throw a spanner

into the works by bringing in Eminem.

Eminem is, you know, I like,

the Slim Shady record. Yeah, that was okay.

But the one I like is the Marshall Mathers record

where he's really, really terrible.

He's like some sort of crazed bulldog

and he's doing it with a laugh.

And you know, that's the one. That's the one.

By the time they got to that one,

their collaboration had become really cemented

and Eminem had been absorbed

into the hip-hop process to that extent.

Dr. Dre actually didn't get that much

out of his partnership with Eminem,

because Dr. Dre's already established.

He didn't need to cross over to middle America

because middle America is already hip-hop.

I mean, there are so many people who are hip-hop,

even though they're middle Americans,

they were the ones buying hip-hop.

So it is more a case of Dr. Dre throwing it

back at the people who were buying his records

than anything else.

Because, really, he didn't need to sign Eminem.

Eminem sold as many records as he sold,

but we actually were also on that meeting

the influence of Jimmy Iovine in this,

who's the head of the label,

the label Head, Interscope Records,

and Jimmy Iovine is a big old rock producer

and he might have twisted Dre's arm a little.

He might have just twisted his arm a little that, you know,

yeah, okay. You know, get me an Eminem.

Released on November 16th, 1999,

Dr. Dre's second solo album, "2001,"

was considered an explosive authentic return

to his gangster rap roots.

It's a brilliant record,

it's like a summation of his career and it was,

not sad, but it was slightly disheartening

to find out afterwards

that Dr. Dre didn't actually write his own lyrics

and that someone like Jay-Z

was actually spoon feedin' Dr. Dre lyrics,

but Mad Skilzs too, I think had a hand in that record

'cause Mad Skillz is,

he's like one of the top ghost writers.

The whole thing is ghost writers.

But Dre sounds amazing on the record,

better than he sounded on the records before

because Dre was just like over the years,

trying to get more and more into an MC,

into an MC that would be respected.

But you can't necessarily be respected as an MC

if you don't write your own lyrics.

This is the hidden side of hip-hop,

ghost writers and people writing lyrics for other people.

It's a hidden side. No one, people don't get the credit

they deserve for writing those lyrics

because mostly the credits go to the producers

and go to the musicians.

And Dr. Dre's a producer

and he didn't really have to do anything

other than actually, you know, just be in his own studio.

So he was relaxed, he's really relaxed,

I mean, he said as many things as he could on that album.

"2001" is still a great record.

You can still hear the times in the record.

And that was when it was millennium fever,

that's why he called it "2001" album.

Featured numerous collaborators

and was highly successful.

Hitting number two on the billboard 200 charts.

In the video for "Still Dre,"

you see Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg driving around LA

with a car that's got the wheels kind of jacked up

and bouncing. You see this a lot in LA.

I mean, I used to live there

and I would see literally see people

driving around like this all the time.

And it, again, it's just kind of a,

a tribute to Los Angeles and the culture.

You see Snoop get out

and he's in his baby blue tracksuit kind of thing,

and he's cool and casual.

And Dre and he are having a great time driving around LA

with their honeys in the backseat.

It's a very, I think it's a very typical,

kind of very fun look at Los Angeles at the time.

"2001" Is probably the one example in his career

where he has just done what, in many respects,

would've been advisable for him to do

most of the rest of the time,

which is just get his head down,

finish a record, get it out.

It was a record that wasn't something

that people had been talking about for years.

And because the previous album

had been relative commercial flop,

then it wasn't a record that perhaps came freighted

with quite so much pressure of expectations of high sales.

So it sold very well. The music on it was pretty excellent,

for the most part.

It had people on it who were already established stars,

who he'd help make established stars

and who clearly were enjoying

being back working with him in this kind of

what one might term traditional way, rather than just being,

you know, having Dre come in and do a beat

for a track on an album that was

otherwise pulled together from other sources.

This was a Dre record. He was in charge,

he did it his way and it worked.

♪ So fuck y'all, all of y'all ♪

♪ If y'all don't like me, blow me ♪

♪ Y'all are gon' keep fuckin' around with me ♪

♪ And turn me back to the old me ♪

♪ Nowadays, everybody wanna talk ♪

♪ Like they got somethin' to say ♪

♪ But nothin' comes out when they move their lips ♪

♪ Just a bunch of gibberish ♪

♪ And motherfuckers act like they forgot about Dre ♪

It's not a high production glossy video,

it's a simple telling of a story.

Dre's talking about how he's changed from the old Dre

and how people are resentful of the success

that he has now and sometimes trying to bring him down.

During the course of 2001's

undeniable popularity,

Dr. Dre was involved in several lawsuits.

Lucas Film Limited,

the film company behind the Star Wars film franchise

sued him over the use of the THX trademarked "Deep Note."

- Okay. - Yes.

Okay, I'm sure there's a few people

who also wanna talk a bit about the Lucas lawsuits.

Let's get this outta way now.

You're also being sued by George Lucas.

Yeah, there's a sound-

there's a sound at the beginning of my album.

It's a THX sound.

I originally used his sound and I tried to get it cleared,

and they said they wouldn't clear it,

so I said it, "fuck it,"

and went back in the studio and created my own sound.

Now they're saying it sounds similar,

which it does, it sounds similar,

but it's my sound that we created in the studio.

So that's what the lawsuit is about,

and I believe we're going to end up settling

and they're going to get what I was offering

them in the first place.

The online music file sharing company, Napster,

also settled a lawsuit with him

and heavy metal rock band Metallica in the summer of 2001,

agreeing to block access to material

that artists do not want to have shared on the network.

What Napster did is enable people to get the music

that I work hard for, for nothing. You know what I'm saying?

What they're basically doing

is taking food outta my kids mouth.

You know what I'm saying? Straight up.

They, in my opinion,

I believe if Napster succeeds with what they're going to do,

you're never going to hear any new music

because there's not any artists that are want to,

that are gonna want to go in the studio and record

if their music is being given away for free.

It's like, what is the whole element of

somebody putting out a album and building a hype around it,

somebody being anxious to hear someone's album.

It's like, we might as well, like me and Dre

might as well cut a song and put it right on the internet

before it comes out. Like, here you go,

this is the song we just did.

You know, why don't we just put it song by song?

If Napster continues, it's gonna be like,

nobody's gonna want to keep making music anymore

because it's like everybody is gonna get it for free.

So what's the point of making the music?

It's like, you know, you make the music from your heart

and you spend hours in the studio

and then somebody just gets it for free.

It's like you're working for free. Like here I,

you can't support your kids or nothing because they want to,

you know, they want,

they're basically taking your music for free.

Straight up. But I don't think there's anybody

in this room that wants to go to work

and not expect to see a paycheck in return.

Straight up, this is my job, this is what I do for a living.

Mm. Would you have used,

would you have used an outlet like Napster now,

if you were just starting out and you had a demo tape

and no one was listening to your music

and no record companies were calling you back,

would you jump on there and try

and promote your music that way though?

Do you think there's a positive aspect to young artists

through the internet and downloading music?

Yes. Yes. I do think that's a positive thing about it,

if it's done that way,

but they're taking our music that we spend money on,

hard work and time and we're professionals with this,

you know what I'm saying?

And they're just giving it away.

Following the impact of his "2001" album,

Dr. Dre invested his energy in making songs

and albums for other artists.

He co-produced six tracks on Eminem's Landmark,

"Marshall Mathers" LP,

including the Grammy winning lead single,

"The Real Slim Shady."

The album itself earned a Grammy

and proved to be the fastest selling rap album of all time.

It's just a vibe I get. You know,

of course they have to have a serious talent,

but sometimes you need a little bit more than that.

You can have a person that's seriously talented

and they can be an asshole. You know what I mean?

So I have to find somebody that has a serious talent

and I can vibe with 'em in the studio.

The person that I work with,

I have to see myself maybe leaving the studio

and going out to eat with 'em and not being irritated.

You know what I'm saying? And vice versa.

they have to be able to get along with me

and accept my personality, you know what I mean?

So that's pretty much it for me. If we can vibe together,

we can have fun together and you have a talent,

I'm gonna bring the best outta you

and you're gonna be a hit.

Dre is a really social person.

He loved people that know him from back then,

before you know, Andre was a super dude.

He still a dude from Compton and a loyal dude too.

His connections and his people,

if you're part of his team. He's gonna look out for you.

More often than not.

Dre's production know-how instincts paid off,

but because of the time and energy

he invested in producing for others,

he developed a reputation as a perfectionist in the studio

as he pushed artists to achieve their highest potential

whilst trying to discover

their own signature perfect beat.

In some cases, many of them didn't end up releasing

any music due to Dr. Dre's pedantic tendencies.

His work ethic as far as in the studio,

if you don't have that sound, it just makes him say, "yay,"

you're gonna keep making hooks. The hook's not right.

Okay, we need to change you to verse, okay,

we need to add this. He's like that.

And some people would be like,

"I mean all you gotta do is put it out

and they're gonna buy it"

But he's not into that, just putting out music.

He's like, I've seen

not even come out with an album.

He's giving him three checks.

So that tells you what kind of guy he is.

You don't give him what he wants

or that sound that he thinks that's gonna stab

and solidify his name with.

He's not letting you put it out.

This not only affected other artist

developing careers, but it was later considered

to have a stifling effect on his own creative process.

Sometimes maybe as an artist, maybe you need to just say,

"look, it's not gonna be perfect,

but let's get it out there 'cause it is what it is."

Dr. Dre is a perfectionist,

so much so that several of the artists he's worked

with on his record label

never actually got to finish their album

because he never thought it was right or good enough.

As a lyricist, Dr. Dre has never

been considered a fantastic artist.

His lyrics are very simple.

He doesn't have the kind of poetic nature

of someone like Jay-Z.

He's not a brilliant writer when it comes to lyrics.

What Dr. Dre is unbeatable at however,

is his skill as a producer.

Watching him in the studio,

people have said is like watching a composer

or an artist at work.

Dr. Dre's greatest skill is that he can hear something

that's genius that someone has done

and he can pull it out of them

and he can kind of put it together

into something that's amazing in terms of music production.

You would be hard pressed to find a more successful

or a more talented music producer than is Dr. Dre.

He's a very famous perfectionist.

In fact, Snoop Dogg said at one time

he had made one rapper he was working with

pull out one line 107 times, he had to repeat that lyric

until Dre thought it was good enough.

I think there's a elastic limit with these things.

If you're pushing somebody to get something

that you can hear in your head and they can't get it right

and it takes them a hundred goes to get it,

are you ever gonna get to whatever it is

that you think you want or that you think you hear in them?

So I think there'll be a law of diminishing returns

would apply there and maybe suggest that

that record isn't gonna work.

And maybe that's when we get to the heart

of why the projects like "Detox"

just never saw the light of day.

They've been worked on too much. It's possible to do that.

Picasso is famously said something about

never finishing a painting,

just deciding to stop working on it.

Perhaps Dre felt that if he kept doing more and more

and trying harder and pushing further,

and getting more out of his people

and insisting that each vocalist redid each take

again and again and again,

somehow that that work ethic that he's got,

that drive would turn into art.

But maybe it steamroll as the inspiration part out of.

It. In 2002, Dre announced a third album

that he planned to call "Detox."

The album suffered numerous delays as he began to focus

more on moonlighting the musical careers of others.

But was the failure to produce "Detox" a mere consequence

of his perfectionism or a product of his ego?

He was supposed to put out the detox album

and he only released one single off it.

It featured Eminem and Skylar Grey.

And Skylar Grey really dominated the track actually.

And Skylar Grey should actually really have an album out

produced by Dre.

And he just kind of, I think after the Eminem experience,

maybe he stopped from doing what he was going to do.

But the "Detox" album is legendary

and he's in, he will put it out.

He's saying he's done with Compton.

With Compton, he's saying he's done.

That this is it,

and when he starts talking about

talking to my diary that he's done.

But I think he will actually still put out "Detox."

He's always ended up talking about

and promoting the next thing

before the next even really take begun to take

even the simplest, most basic initial shape.

I really don't see how as a creative person

that can be a healthy place for you to be in.

Sometimes you just need to do what you've got to do

to get the art out,

and then tell the world about it once it's done.

Following 11 years

of barren work on his "Detox" album,

it was confirmed the album would never be released

because of Dr. Dre's entrepreneurial ventures

that had arguably interfered with his recording work.

We then suddenly find Dre abandoning this apparently,

and instead with the "Compton" record,

we get something that is apparently

as close as he's ever got

to a sort of an instantaneous reaction

to breaking news in current events.

He's decided that that the exercise

that he had to go through for the making

of the "Straight Outta Compton" film,

of looking back at his past

and seeing that past through other people's eyes,

through the eyes of F. Gary Gray

and the writers and the the production team involved

in this big production Hollywood movie

about his life and his group's past.

He starts to see himself in a different light

and he decides "Detox" is gone, he's scrapping it,

and instead he's gonna make a record

that gets to the heart of what he was always all about

because he's been able to see that past come alive

in a new way because of this creative process

that he's been on with the film.

So if we read that narrative at face value

and we see no reason not to.

Then we see Dre going from a stalled 15 year process

of trying to make one record

that he hasn't got anywhere with,

that he's willing to let anyone hear.

And instead abandoning that

and coming up with something that by his standards,

is kind of dashed off in an afternoon almost.

It's quick, it's unexpected.

It's finished, it's surprise.

It's out in the shops tomorrow

and you kind of wonder whether what he'd lost by working,

overworking, reworking, working again through "Detox,"

whether he is actually gained that much back

by going completely in the opposite direction.

And, and suddenly we, we get into Compton,

which he says is put together quickly,

rough and ready at the last minute.

And I don't know that either of those

is necessarily the best way for him.

In 2015, the N.W.A. drama,

"Straight Outta Compton" was released in theaters,

Straight Outta Compton was met with mixed reviews,

criticized for not painting an accurate picture

of N.W.A.s earlier years,

as well as omitting previous acts of violence against women

and for setting an unfair portrayal

of the people involved in making N.W.A.

The film of Compton.

I'm waiting for it to come out on DVD and I'll watch it.

I won't have a problem watching it

because it's the story of N.W.A. supposedly.

But I'm sure it being Hollywood,

it's sugar coated and as long as it's sugar coated,

I'm not really, you know, that interested.

If it's considering the kind of nature of their records,

it shouldn't really be sugar coated, but that's Hollywood.

You have this group whose main contribution

to the wider discussions about the society that they inhabit

is to be those people

who were telling these difficult stories.

Regardless of how they came out of them,

they were gonna tell the truth

as they saw it in their music.

And you have a film, that takes the real story of the band

and works itself into knots,

trying to sanitize parts of that story for,

not just for public consumption,

because you'd imagine that the public going

to see a film about N.W.A.

would have at least a vague idea of who N.W.A. were,

why they might be important,

and therefore what sort of material

they're likely to encounter in the film.

But it seems almost designed to have burnished an image

of Dre in particular as being a guy

who basically could never do any wrong.

The film influenced the producer

to abort "Detox" in favor of an LP Inspired by the film,

Dre announced that he would be releasing his final

and brand new album entitled "Compton" in August, 2015.

The compilation style album

features a number of collaborators

from various points in his career,

including Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar, Exhibit,

and The Game, among others.

When Compton was released,

it received widespread acclaim from music critics.

The Compton album is, it's just excellent.

I listen to it, I'm like, "whoa."

And then I realized that what he was doing,

what Dr. Dre was doing

was actually going through chapters of his life in Compton.

While "The Chronic" in 2001 were able

to cultivate and define both the landscape

and counter culture that surrounded them.

It's unclear whether his most recent "Compton"

will be able to have the same impact.

It was very well received by critics.

It sold something like 250,000 units in the first week.

It wasn't the kind of success that he had

with some of his earlier work,

but at the same time it was very widely received.

Dr. Dre said with the album "Compton,"

he actually had 20 to 40 tracks for the album

that he did not include 'cause he didn't think

they were good enough to make the cut.

He's a notorious perfectionist

and everything he does has to be just right.

That's what I am, I'm a I'm a record producer.

I'm just a creative and innovative person

that just love letting my creative juices flow in any way.

So that's my love.

Most of the time I have to get talked into

performing on record or performing in the videos

and what have you, because I don't think that's my thing

and I don't think that's what my true talent lies.

2021 Was a tough year for Dre

as he suffered a brain aneurysm

and was rushed to the hospital for treatment in January.

He was discharged not long after,

later that year in December,

Dr. Dre and his wife Nicole Plotser,

settled their divorce for 100 million.

Then that same year, an update for the video game,

"Grand Theft Auto Online,"

predominantly featured Dre

and some of his previously unreleased tracks,

which were released as an EP,

the contract in February, 2022.

In 2022, a well recovered Dre

performed at the Super Bowl halftime show.

Dre's pay staking sensibility

can be heard in his production aesthetic,

which has changed intermittently

and grown increasingly meticulous over the years

from his days as a member

of the gangsta rap group, N.W.A.

through his solo outings and on to his mission

to discover and produce for numerous artists today.

Dr. Dre remains one of the most successful figures

in the music business.

It will take generations to fully grasp the richness

of Dr. Dre's dexterity and the ever changing impact

of his musical advancement,

both in their moment and for the future.

hip-hop is never in danger of becoming too commercial,

especially when you have artists

and producers like myself out there

because I'm gonna always keep it raw

and keep it straight and keep it dirty,

straight up, no matter what.