Dr. Dre and the hand of King Midas
In Greek mythology, King Midas of Phrygia was known to have the ability to turn everything into gold wherever he touched it. I think Dr….
In Greek mythology, King Midas of Phrygia was known to have the ability to turn everything into gold wherever he touched it. I think Dr. Dre was also born with such superpowers, because he was the “uncrowned king” who, wherever he touched, created great changes in hip hop music.
OWN DISC LABEL / SOLO CAREER AND MUSIC PRODUCTION
Dr.’s real name Dre is Andre Young, famous since his time as a member of the famous gangsta hip hop group N.W.A (N* Wit Attitudes). During the chaotic times of hip hop music at that time, DJs had to create beats mainly by playing back other records on the turntable so that a “mc” could rap over this beat (because people of color at that time were discriminated against). isolated and banned from learning and playing musical instruments). At that time, N.W.A emerged as a complete group because it had both DJs (Dre and Yella) and MCs (Ice Cube, Eazy E, MC Ren). N.W.A rappers therefore do not have to depend on any DJ at all, but all of the group’s beats are made by Dr. Dre serves as the main beat producer. Along with Ice Cube’s lyric writing talent, Eazy E.’s rapping talent, Dr. Dre brought to listeners “the group that said mother**** the police” which made both the hip hop world and America crazy at that time.
If in N.W.A, Dre’s role was simply to use music samples for beats, and produce directly for the MCs’ rap, then after leaving the group and founding his own studio Death Row with Suge Knight, he is truly satisfied with making a name for himself with all the roles from writing lyrics, producing beats, rapping, mixing, and producing.
The first and biggest influence on Dr. Dre is credited with developing the G-funk genre, which helped differentiate West Coast hip hop from the East Coast, and with the rise of N.W.A, West Coast hip hop (centered in Compton, California) took over. America throughout the second half of the 80s and early 90s. If hip hop music was initially developed from New York (East Coast hip hop) and spread to other regions in the United States including the West Coast in the early 80s, then the consecutive achievements of NWA, Ice- T, and the famous products of Death Row in the post-N.W.A era, in which West Coast hip hop emerged and surpassed the East Coast in the 1990s.
At that time, East Coast hip hop was heavy on polysyllabic lyrics, wordplay, and deeper lyrics, while West Coast hip hop had more straightforward, provocative lyrics due to the influence of gangsta rap. Throughout its nearly hundred-year history and inspiration for all genres of white music, black artists often swallow their resistance, and the stories in music seem to be just for the sake of it. share with each other. Black artists on the West Coast were probably the first to direct that anger and protest outward, something white people had been “allowed” to do for a long time with Rock n Roll music and later. Heavy Metal, despite repression and racism, reached suffocating levels in the late 80s and early 90s. That’s why, even though it didn’t get much airtime on the radio, when N.W.A started “f*ck tha police” and was chased by the police on their own show, the frequency of concern and special care from the media was obvious. The communication with the authorities has unintentionally caused N.W.A’s music in particular, and hip hop in general, to achieve a breakthrough number of listeners and followers.
As a result, only now do people realize how good hip hop music is, because the familiar hip hop from the East Coast is quite boring, with thick and heavy bass, fast tempo and many The sample seems to borrow the guitar sound from rock music, making the music sound lacking its own color, and it’s not fun because it still has to borrow from white people’s music.
But during the West Coast’s heyday, the beat had a slower tempo and a sharper sound, and not far away, its influence came from Funk music, which is music with simple chords but bass and drum playing. has reached its quintessence. Dre himself was one of the pioneers who discovered the practice of recording live instrumentalists in the studio, and recreating the sound from the original sample with live music, giving him complete control over the timbre of the music. , from pitch and tempo to adding a little color to it. The perfect sound of G-funk (gangsta funk) started here, and hip hop is now alive with the breath of the sound of black people.
The mark of Dre’s beat at that time was the solid funk drums, deep bass, soulful backing vocals and smooth synth sounds. And that was the foundation that created Dre’s classic album “The Chronic”, which Kanye West later praised as being as influential in hip hop “music” as the classic album “Songs In The Key Of”. Life” in soul music by Stevie Wonder. Thanks to Dre’s creative talent, hip hop has a much more “musical” quality when the use of samples is minimized as much as possible. The disc “The Chronic” later sold 5.8 million copies in the US alone, and was on the Billboard Top 10 for 8 consecutive months.
Despite his resounding business success with Death Row Records, concerned about the danger and disgusted by Suge Knight’s “trumping” of Suge Knight, Dre bravely left the biggest boss in the hip hop world to create established a separate studio, Aftermath, ready to leave all intellectual products as well as the artists the company is managing and revenue to Knight. Deep inside, Dre is probably more than confident in his ability to “touch gold”. DISCOVER YOUNG TALENTDr. Dre is not only considered a genius in music production, he is also a teacher, trainer and brought glory to many other artists who later became considered legends in the hip hop music industry. .
Since the N.W.A era, Dre has often “produced” directly when rappers recorded, by dictating how they should rap, and it was Eazy E who was the first person Dr. Dre “forced” him to hold the mic. When starting Death Row, the first artist Dre discovered and developed was Snoop Dogg right from his debut album “Doggystyle”, with No 1 in the first week of sales with more than 800,000 copies and a total of 4 million copies later. . Tupac Sakhur then also asked Dr. Dre achieved great success in the mainstream market with the disc All Eyez On Me and the classic single California Love. All Eyez On Me also won No. 1 in the first week with more than 500,000 copies and has now sold more than 10 million records.
During Aftermath, Dre discovered the talent of Eminem, the artist who brought the record label’s first success. Even though many people at that time tried to stop it, Dr. Dre invested money in a white guy with blonde hair and blue eyes, an image unlike any other rapper on the market: “I don’t care if his skin is purple or what, you have to sign a contract with him.” . The debut album Slim Shady LP later sold more than 5 million copies in the US alone. Marshall Mathers LP followed with a record of 1.76 million copies in the first week alone, and now a total of more than 11 million copies. Eminem became the best-selling artist in hip hop music and ranked second of all time. And Dr. Dre dragged him back from Detroit, where it was a bus ride to get to New York, not to mention shoot some new cannons to the West Coast.But forget, it’s no exaggeration to say that Dre himself discovered his own talent and continuously pushed it to new limits. In “2001”, Dre further perfected G-funk’s already perfect sound, and he rapped as admirably as anyone, although he still admitted that he needed a “ghostwriter” to do it. Help write raps. Like DJ Premier answered Dre’s question “what’s the difference between a music producer and a beat maker?”. With Premier, music production is like filmmaking, one can shoot a lot of footage but the important thing is the editing and the final artistic product. Music by Dr. Dre is exactly like that, has colors like a movie and sounds very “cool”.Success continues to succeed, other artists take turns standing at the top of the billboard thanks to Dre’s “golden hand”, from 50 Cent (originally from the East Coast), The Game, to recently a critically acclaimed hip hop artist. Extremely appreciative of Kendrick Lamar. Most recently, in 2018, Dre discovered another talent, Anderson Paak, on the Oxnard disc.
During the tense period of the battle between West Coast and East Coast hip hop during 1993-1996, Dr. Dre is also among the few “immune” to hostility when sitting on the West Coast and producing for rapper Nas from the East Coast with the album “It was written”.His success did not come from Dr. Dre is a perfectionist and works with great intensity. Therefore, every time he steps into the studio, everyone immediately has to seriously focus on composing and recording. Dre’s extremely sharp ears can detect what the audience wants to listen to or will like to listen to, for example with street rap, the music and lyrics must be very real because that is what people listen to. being on the street (not about money, girls or cars) He can create hits from someone who doesn’t even know how to rap reading a piece of news in the newspaper.For Dre, the greatest thing for him is to discover and hone the potential of those who are still struggling somewhere with life out there, and bring them the success worthy of their talent. Snoop Dogg, Tupac, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar are such lucky people. Therefore, when he became famous, his brothers still called him by the respectful title: “doc”.
Dre has real Midas hands, because when not, this producer switched to making electronics and was also successful. Starting from scratch after opening Aftermath, but now after selling the company that produces the high-end headphone product line Beats By Dre to Apple for $3.2 billion, Dr. Dre is already the richest hip hop artist in the world, surpassing Sean Combs (Diddy) – also founder of Bad Boys Entertainment record label – representing East Coast hip hop, producer of the famous Wu Tan Clan, and is the counterpart of the former Death Row itself.
Dre has revolutionized consumer habits, with the slogan of bringing headphones that can listen to music “like it comes from the producer’s ears”. It’s so smart, if in the past people only had the habit of wearing earphones on the street, then Beats headphones have a unique design like a fashion accessory and with that slogan, young people are ready to take it up. head and walk out confidently like connoisseurs of music despite wearing a heavy bag on their head.Say Dr. Dre has the touch of King Midas, not only is he right about where he can “touch” and make money there. Like Midas, Dre is not a person with a life of roses as many people mistakenly think. He also experienced many failures in his marriage and family relationships, was sued for violence against women, was arrested for speeding with an alcohol concentration above the limit, and for assaulting a police officer. .
While in N.W.A, his younger brother Tyree died in a fight. In 2008, Andre Young Jr, Dre’s son, died of drug overdose at the age of 20.Personally, I’m not too concerned about Dr. Dr.’s “money-making” business. Dre, but embracing the talents created by Dr. Dre keeps discovering, and with the excitement of the “Detox” record that he has been promising for 15 years, the small me at the bottom of my heart still hopes that Dr. Dre is truly King Midas reincarnated, allowing the audience to continue to have “golden” products.(Wow, although this also means that Dr. Dre will have a disastrous end like King Midas in the myth)Kunt
