artist american
Dr. Dre
1965–today · Compton, California
Hip-hop's greatest producer: the Compton beatmaker who invented G-funk with Parliament-Funkadelic samples, built Death Row, then Aftermath, and launched Eminem and Kendrick Lamar.
Andre Romelle Young (Dr. Dre) was the DJ and producer of N.W.A, the beat architect behind Eazy-E’s debut, and after the group’s acrimonious split in 1991, the co-founder with Suge Knight of Death Row Records. His debut solo album The Chronic (1992) — named after a high-potency strain of cannabis, built largely from Parliament-Funkadelic samples — invented G-funk: slow tempos, synthesizer melodies, heavy bass, laid-back delivery. It also introduced Snoop Dogg to the world.
Snoop’s debut Doggystyle (1993), produced by Dre, went four-times platinum. The Death Row roster — Tupac Shakur, Snoop, Tha Dogg Pound — dominated hip-hop commercially through the mid-1990s. After Tupac’s murder and Knight’s imprisonment, Dre left Death Row in 1996 and founded Aftermath Entertainment.
2001 (1999) reasserted his dominance: “Still D.R.E.” (with a piano riff by Jay-Z collaborator Scott Storch), “Forgot About Dre,” and the introduction of Eminem, whom Dre had signed in 1998 after hearing his demo tape. He subsequently discovered Kendrick Lamar and executive- produced good kid, m.A.A.d city (2012). His production credit is as much a guarantee of quality as any in popular music.
Part of
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Gangsta Rap
genreFirst-person accounts of gang life, police violence and street economics: N.W.A's documentary brutality made gangsta rap the most controversial and commercially dominant rap style of the 1990s.
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Trap
genreAtlanta's contribution to hip-hop's global dominance: hi-hat triplets, heavy 808 bass, drug economy narratives — trap redrew hip-hop's center of gravity from New York and Los Angeles to the South.
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West Coast Hip-Hop
genreFrom N.W.A's Compton documents to Dr. Dre's G-funk to Kendrick Lamar's Pulitzer: the West Coast built its own hip-hop language around the geography and sonic palette of Los Angeles.
Sources
- Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation — Jeff Chang (2005). St. Martin's Press · Book
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