A look back on Dr. Dre’s long journey from the Compton streets to getting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
From the distinction of becoming hip-hop’s first billionaire to being honored with a Hollywood Walk of Fame star this week, the accomplishments and confidence of the man born Andre Young — aka legendary producer-rapper-entrepreneur Dr. Dre — could best be summed up with the lyrics from his debut solo hit, 1992’s “Nuthin’ but a ‘G’ Thang”:
“You never been on a ride like this before / With a producer who can rap and control the micstro / At the same time with the dope rhyme that I kick / You know and I know, I flow some old funky shit.”
Using hip-hop as the basis of all he’s been and made, Dre’s epic adventure — one ripe with brash self-assurance and a continued need for invention (and re-invention) — is as filled with victory as it has been tumult. “I have had such a traumatic career, but such a fortunate career at the same time,” he told director Allen Hughes for 2017’s documentary series “The Defiant Ones.” Indeed, his vastly influential and lucrative career has also been beset by personal tragedy, including the loss of his beloved brother Tyree to street violence and a son to drug abuse.
But his determination has overcome trauma. Music has always entranced the 59-year-old Compton native, ever since his mother placed her son in front of her stereo’s speakers for the first time. Following high school, Young became “Dr. Dre” for the DJ-heavy rap ensemble World Class Wrecking Cru, and fashioned its biggest track, “Surgery.” Befriending Ruthless Records founder Eric “Eazy-E” Wright in 1986, then O’Shea “Ice Cube” Jackson and the rest of the men that made up N.W.A, was game-changing for the young Dre, who was the musical mastermind of the group’s success.
“Eazy-E is the godfather of gangster rap,” Ice Cube said in “The Defiant Ones,” “but you don’t have Eazy-E without Dr. Dre.”
As a collective, N.W.A painted the raging red colors of Black Los Angeles’ streets and social unrest with a palette of thick beats, menacing melodies and incendiary “gangster rap” language. Dre’s time as a producer and rapper in N.W.A helped position the group as revolutionaries and defined the sound of the West Coast. But like many good things, it simply couldn’t last.
“Money and business got involved and separated the friendship,” Dre told Kevin Hart for his “Hart to Heart” program. “I knew I had this talent and had been developing these skills.”
Dre peeled off from his N.W.A cohort and embarked on a solo venture, creating another musical masterpiece that reshaped the sound of California hip-hop. This time, the change came with the laid-back, George Clinton-inspired groove of G-funk and his debut solo album “The Chronic.” Along with introducing dozy rapper Snoop Dogg to the world (Dre also produced Snoop’s “Doggystyle” debut in 1993), “The Chronic” became a hip-hop cornerstone, ushering in an entirely new sound and era for the genre and serving as a massive breakthrough for the multi-hyphenate artist.
On “The Chronic,” Dre took the bassy, gunshot rhythms and dense musicality he invented for N.W.A albums and made them lower and slower. And though Dre co-founded the notorious and enormously successful Death Row Records with the now-incarcerated Suge Knight in 1991, he left it all behind — at considerable personal expense — in March 1996 due to internal squabbles and escalating violence: Death Row artist Tupac Shakur was shot and killed just months later while riding in a vehicle with Knight. Dre started all over with his Aftermath label: “I have no problem betting on myself,” Dre told Hart of founding the imprint. “And I’m gonna win.
Distributed through Interscope, Aftermath’s first major victory came before the end of the ’90s and signaled Dre’s next great collab as a producer and tastemaker, signing controversial rapper Eminem and overseeing his breakthrough album “The Slim Shady LP.” Four years later, he struck platinum again with 50 Cent. To say that Dre had the Midas touch would be an understatement.
Yet Dre’s next move — and his next collaboration with Interscope co-founder Jimmy Iovine — would both encompass and stretch beyond the music industry. The two co-founded Beats Electronics in 2006 and launched its Beats by Dre headphones two years later. Within a year of launch, they had sold nearly 2 million headsets, and after teaming with Apple for Beats Music’s streaming service in 2014, they sold the Beats brand to the tech giant for $3.
