50 reveals Dre and Em are down to work with him on his next album
After 50 Cent announced that he has new music, a TV series, and a movie dropping this year, he expounded during his appearance on Big Boy TV this month that Eminem and Dr. Dre are ready to contribute to his next album.
“As soon as I said that, I got a text from [Eminem] that he had already spoke to Dre, and that Dre is in there and he got some crazy stuff for me to go hear,” he explained. “This is my process: I’ll go make something, what I can find, the best music that I can put my hands on. And when I feel real good about it, I bring it to put pressure on Dre to offer me something. ‘Cause he’ll have something… He’s always had something.”
Dr. Dre and Warren G are steps brothers by marriage. Dr. Dre’s mother and Warren G’s father married each other and brought both families together.
Warren G was longtime friends with Nate Dogg, who is Snoop Dogg’s cousin and he eventually met Snoop and they all started a group called 213, which was named after L.A.’s area code. Dr. Dre ended up meeting Snoop Dogg through Warren G and signed him.
Dr. Dre 1999’s Still D.R.E. was written by Jay-Z, the song was the lead single off Dr. Dre’s second album 2001.
When Dr. Dre was working on his Chronic 2001 album, he brought in Jay-Z to help write his comeback record, Jay-Z wrote all of the lyrics for 1999’s Still D.R.E.. Dr. Dre, Mel-Man and Scott Storch produced the song and featured Snoop Dogg on the hook. Still D.R.E. peaked at No. 93 on the US Billboard Hot 100 but the song was more successful in the U.K..
“At first, he wrote about diamonds and Bentleys,” Dr. Dre told Blaze magazine in 1999. “So I told Jay to write some other shit. Jigga sat for 20 minutes and came back with some hard-ass, around-the-way L.A. shit.”
Watch the music video for Still D.R.E. below, directed by Hype Williams.
On the night of February 21, 2001 at the 43rd Grammy Awards, Dr. Dre became the first hip-hop producer to win a Grammy for Producer of The Year, Non-Classical.
Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Bill Bottrell, Nigel Godrich, and Matt Serletic we’re all nominated for the 2001 Producer of The Year Grammy but Dr. Dre won mostly because of his work on Eminem’s Grammy-winning 2000 album The Marshall Mathers LP.
In 1992, Snoop Dogg needed a ride to a studio session with Dr. Dre. Snoop Dogg’s cousin, RBX, gave him a ride and ended up being featured on Dr. Dre’s debut album The Chronic. The album peaked at No. 3 on the U.S. Billboard 200 Chart.
Long Beach rapper RBX, who’s name stands for “Reality Born Unknown,” was featured on six songs on The Chronic, including “Let Me Ride,” “The Day the Niggaz Took Over,” “Lyrical Gangbang,” “High Powered,” “Stranded on Death Row,” and “The Roach” (The Chronic Outro). RBX eventually signed to Death Row Records with his cousins Snoop Dogg and Daz Dillinger of Tha Dogg Pound that same year of 1992, he left the label two years after.
“He said, ‘Man, I’m gonna come back when you get off work. I’m gonna need a ride.’ I said, ‘Where do you need a ride to?’ He said, ‘I need a ride to Dre’s house.’ And I say, ‘Ok, where does Dre stay?’ He said, ‘Just, like, on the other side of Hollywood.’ Lying through his teeth. Calabasas is not on the other side of Hollywood.“ —RBX explaining how the studio session came about in an interview with LA Weekly.
In the early ’80s, Dr. Dre was in a group called World Class Wreckin Cru before he was in N.W.A.. World Class Wreckin’ Cru was an electro group from Compton consisting of members (from left to right) Dr Dre, DJ Yella, Cli-N-Tel and Lonzo. World Class Wreckin’ Cru premiered in a Compton club called Eve After Dark which was owned by Lonzo (DJ Alonzo Williams).
As hip-hop grew during the ’80s, Dr. Dre rebranded himself after he went to jail. In exchange for bail money, Dr. Dre agreed to work on beats for his friend Ruthless Eric “Eazy-E” Wright’s fledgling label. This led to Eazy E, Dr. Dre and DJ Yella joining forces with Ice Cube and MC Ren to form the classic N.W.A. lineup. N.W.A. albums “Straight Outta Compton” (1988) and “Niggaz4Life” (1991) were both released on Ruthless Records.
In HBO’s 2017 documentary series, “The Defiant Ones,” Dr. Dre referred to World Class Wreckin’ Cru’s 1984 record “Surgery” as “corny.”
The group released two albums; World Class (1985) and Rapped In Romance (1986).
During a 2012 interview with WGCI’s “The Morning Riot”, Kendrick Lamar revealed seeing Tupac and Dr. Dre shoot the music video for ‘California Love’ in Compton inspired the then 7-year-old K. Dot to pursue a career in hip-hop.
The music video for Tupac and Dr Dre‘s collaboration ‘California Love’ was shot near Kendrick Lamar’s house.
“I was in Compton and they were shooting the first version of it,” he said. “They stopped right in front of the middle of the street. My pops had seen them and came back to the house and got me. My father went to the house to get me and put me on his shoulders to watch them shoot.” Kendrick Lamar said.
Kendrick also tells the story to the Recording Academy
“I was about eight years old, they was shooting a video in my neighborhood in compton. My father see them, went two blocks down and got me, by the time he got me everybody was out there it was pandemonium, he put me on his shoulders and there they was, Dr Dre and Tupac right there…”
“I think it was a white bentley… that moment right there, whether I knew it or not, branched me off to what i’m doing now, it was already designed in destiny. 15 years later i meet Dr Dre and i explained that story to him and he remembered that same exact moment and he remember them kids that was out there and i said Dre, I was one of them kids that was there, it’s a crazy feeling.” Kendrick Lamar says.
