Requested July 96 Dre Source article (very long)

[tnp]

This article was requested by a few people on this board, so here it is. It is very long, please don't post anything until I am finished.

peace,
tnp

Life After Death interview by Frank Williams

Arguably one of this generation’s most talented producers, Dr. Dre departs from history-making Death Row Records. In the process, he potentially shifts the balance of power in the music industry, creates a new possibility for “pop culture” and embarks upon a new chapter in the drama that is the life of a superstar.

“It is not the critic that counts. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena...who at best knows in the end the triumphs of the high achievements and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place will never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat...”
                        ------Theodore Roosevelt

Life after death...those three words are swimming feverishly around in my head as I swerve in my bucket gold VW Jetta down the freeway on a Sunday afternoon in Los Angeles. I’m wondering if Dr. Dre has considered all the possibilities of something so unexplored as the rebirthing of a man. A new life. A chance to start over.
For about three months now, it seems as if the whole world wants to catch up with hip-hop’s most successful producer. Once he departed Death Row Records, the label he co-owned and founded with Suge Knight in 1992, Dre went underground. Since the March breakup he hasn’t spoken a word to anyone. A page to your sister’s friend who knows Dre or a beep to Dre’s assistant himself still didn’t work. But while the world is gossiping about everything from him getting beat down by Tupac Shakur and Suge, to him fearing for his life, Dre was finding his center. Hanging out at the ocean near Malibu to clear his thoughts, or sitting blazed up in the studio thinking about making money.
While a few grumbled that he was upset with the musical direction at Death Row Records, Dre was actually laying out his own blueprint for a new label filled with surprises. Expect lyrical gifts from M Cs like nasal-voiced Nas and rattlesnake-tongued cutie named Foxxy Brown. Look for him to delve a little deeper into R&B with a silky voiced brother named Ruben Munoz. And he promises too, a song that will end the East coast, West coast drama forever.
So, from the ruins of the music industry’s most important recent shakeup, come the words from the architect himself, Dr. Dre. Raw and uncensored. Whithout Snoop...without Suge shadowing him...and without Death Row Records.

HIDING OUT AT HOME?
In hot ass Calabasas, a suburb just 40 minutes north of downtown L.A., I turn into the driveway of Dre’s complex. An older white couple clutching tennis rackets bops by my car. I think: this snooty scene must be radically different from Dre and Suge’s childhood in Compton.
Up a steep winding hill and two turns later, I see the modest sized two-level crib. It’s obviously and expensive spot, but it looks more like track housing for the rich. The crib is lavishly understated in a black and gold theme with glass mirrors everywhere. In some places the glass reaches from the ceiling to the floor. Every few seconds you bump into your own reflection. The decor fits Dre. It’s not overtly self aggrandizing, just proud and low key. Vintage Andre Young.
The house is fairly immaculate save for jugs of Hennessy and Bacardi sharing space with a two liter of Pepsi on a counter. A pool room is filled with artwork reminiscent of the slinky Black figures on those Good Times paintings. There are photos of Dre’s children everywhere, and also a photo of a fine 30-ish looking Black woman. This is Dre’s girlfriend Nicole, who lives here with him and her son Tyler.
Gazing at the walls is like a tour de force of Dre’s career. Platinum albums, not the big gaudy ones, cover the walls. JJ Fad, DOC, N.W.A, Doggystyle, The Chronic, Murder Was the Case, the Above the Rim and Friday soundtracks, and probably some shit I didn’t see. Observing the plaques is like a West coast race through a decade of hip-hop.
Twenty minutes later, 31-year old Dr. Dre bounces down the stairs holding a bag full of DAT’s. He is wearing a short sleeved blue jean shirt and blue jeans. Two fat carat sized diamond earrings are in each ear. “I was having sex with my girl,” he says laughing. “It takes her a long ass time to come, so I was trying to time it just right.”
We immediately head to the driveway and jump in the Rover for a lunch in Malibu. Inside the car, Dre excitedly begins detailing some of his plans for the new album. “But first,” he says “let’s listen to some of the new shit.” The booming bass and violins on the cut he’s playing force your neck into a nod, but it’s the chant that will make the song blow up. A thunderous roar of brothers shout in the chorus: “EAST COAST KILLA, WEST COAST KILLA...” Dre grins and says we will talk about the song later during the interview.
Next he drops a tape into his DAT walkman, which is hooked to his pricey stereo. The sound of RBX’s distinctive voice comes on saying in nursery rhyme jest: “Tha Dogg Pound had a pimp...” Dre grins a little and says, “That’s some crazy shit,right? The worst part is they are all cousins. Snoop, Daz and RBX.” I don’t know whether to laugh myself or take Dre seriously. Especially when RBX continues on the record with one line jokes and portrays Tha Dogg Pound holed up in a hotel room with red underwear on, waiting for their pimp. I wonder to myself if this is referring to Suge. “Naw,” Dre says again, “just playing around in the studio.”
Food ordered at Gladstones, a well-known seafood restaurant right on the ocean, we immediately start chopping game. Like most folks, a few obvious questions have been etched in my notebook...

The Source: When you were on Ruthless Records, Eazy was the captain of the ship. You were putting most of the creative stuff down. But Eazy was still running it. Then at Death Row records, again you were kinda putting most of the creative work down and Suge was there. Do you now want to put everything together from Dre’s perspective?
Dr. Dre: It was just like it’s time for Dre to look out for Dre. ‘Cause Dre’s been looking out for everybody else. Although a few people were looking out for me too. Everybody’s in a position right now where they can do their own thing. I’m in a position where I can do my own thing and be crazy successful. So that’s what I am going to do.

Was there a point when you knew you had to roll out? Somethng that made you wanna leave Death Row? A particular incident? Or did you just wake up one day...
It wasn’t nothing that happened. Actually, it was just an accumulation of a lot of little shit and it got to the point where I wasn’t having fun (at Death Row) anymore. It’s like I wanna go up to the studio and work and it’s like 50 muthafuckas in the studio I don’t know. They are all in your ear while you are trying to work. So I decided to just bounce.

Is that one of the reasons you left? To get your own business?
It got to the point in the studio where brothers were sticking their hand out like, “Yo, what’s up, we just signed to the label.” And I was like, “I don’t even know you.” I feel like this: I made everybody a lot of money there. I made the people that I worked with at Death Row superstars. And game ‘em careers. Now they can move on and do their thang. And I am going to move on and do my thang.

So did you approach Jimmy Iovine from Interscope, or did he approach you?
I came at Jimmy (president of Interscope records) about three months ago and he was into it. He’s not losing shit, so why not. I wouldn’t have went anywhere else. I got mad love for Interscope. Me and Jimmy are cool. He pays what he says he’s going to pay and does what he says he’s going to do. And that’s all I ask for. Don’t shoot me no bullshit.

Bullshit is Dre’s buzz word today as he repeatedly gazes out the window and plays with the straw from his drink. Ridding himself of bullshit employees by firing accountants and lawyers. Cutting off bullshit niggas in his circle.
So after months of simmering poor relations with his seven-year friend and business partner Suge, Dre said he finally had enough. He sold his 50 percent share of the upstart independent label back to the brazen C.E.O and has begun work on projects tha he will have sole creative control over. Dre won’t discuss the specifics of what he got for his shares in Death Row, but if the company is estimated at worth more than $100 million, take a guess on how much he got for his half.
The deal possibly complicates life for Interscope, which also is home to Death Row Records. Reached at his L.A office, Iovine wouldn’t talk money or details, but he maintained Dre’s deal will in no way change Interscope’s four year relationship and success with Suge.
In fact, Dre’s new label is a joint venture being funded in part by Interscope Records. Dre has already hired Kirdas Tucker, a former LaFace Records employee, as general manager, and is looking for A&R people and other employees. He’s signed fellow Compton rapper King Tee and squashed his beef with RBX, adding the rapper to his label. Most of the other artists are newcomers.

[tnp]

“When you work with new artists, there’s no ego involved,” Dre said about his decision to concentrate on unknown talent. “Motherfuckers are hungry and ready to get in there to work. And ready to take direction and advice. That’s what I like. Then you can get a hit record. Let’s say that I would have worked with Madonna or Michael Jackson. I would have been like the other 100 motherfuckers trying to work with them or submitting tracks. Dre ain’t about that. I’m different.”
The company is as yet untitled. Originally, Dre wanted to call his record Black Market Records. But the name was already copyrighted by some Bay Area rappers. He tried buying them out, but they kept upping the ante from $100, 000 to some outlandish figure. So as of this printing, Dre’s label remains nameless.
What’s certain is that he will release a compilation album to hit stores in late July or early August. Along with the earlier “East Coast...” joint, there will likely be cuts from Sam Sneed (“Think You Betta Recognize”) and RBX.
Sources say Sneed is stuck in a legal battle to get out of his contract with Death Row. Sneed, who is from Pittsburgh, recently completed a video for a song called “Lady Heroine,” scheduled to be released on Death Row. In the video, a number of East coast artists made cameos, but no West coast or Death Row artists appeared in it. This apparently became a point of tension and conflict between Sneed and the Death Row family, leading to his pursuit of a release from his contract.
   
NO LONGER STRANDED ON DEATH ROW
“I haven’t talked to Suge in months. I hear all kinds of rumors. It’s a million fucking rumors floating around. I’ve gotten shot. I’ve gotten beat up and all this ole’ shit. Ain’t nothing happened to me and ain’t nothing gonna happen to me. Dre is at home and in the studio. That’s it. I don’t go to no clubs no more. I don’t hang out. If I wanna hang out, it’s just with the niggas that I know real good and we chill like that.”

When a founder leaves his company and takes the blueprints with him, there’s bound to be tension. And when that company is rap’s most notorious and legally documented batch of crazy ass niggas, the career change is even more risky. Dre though, says he does not fear retaliation.
“Everybody knows where I live,” he says emphatically. “I don’t really think it’s Suge mentality or Tupac’s mentality. Just when the niggas come around. Niggas start pumping shit up. They are like, ‘Aww nigga, you ain’t gon’ do shit about this nigga?’ Both Suge and Tupac know I ain’t never did shit but try to help both of them. We all stay paid like a motherfucker. We still doing the same shit, we just doing it on a different level now. A lot of the motherfuckers that are around Death Row are either jealous or miserable because they are not in the position that you are. They want shit to be fucked up. They want Suge and Tupac to be mad at Dre and want to get at me. That pumps them up. But I know deep down inside, niggas know what’s up with Dre. That nigga look out. He made shit happen.”
Pausing for a minute to collect his thoughts, Dre puts his departure into better perspective. “I felt like I helped build Death Row up to a point where I didn’t leave nobody high and dry.” he continues. “They are at a point now where anything that come out on Death Row, people are gonna check it out. And I helped build that. If they put out hit records, I think it will be all good. I am the one taking the risk. I stepped away from al that and started all the way over. So I’m the on with the risk, not Death Row. I should like like one of the stupid ones, although thye lost one of the best producers in the world. To me, that should make them work harder. If I had a dope ass producer and he’s gone to do some new shit, I would be trying to prove something to him. Like, ‘nigga, we can do this without you.’ ‘Cause I am definitely finna’ show Death Row that I can make hit records just as big, if not bigger, on my own. It’s all good.”

But Dre, what about people like Snoop? You put Snoop down with Death Row. Why didn’t he come with you?
That’s a difficult situation. Snoop is the most valuable asset at Death Row. He can’t just walk away. You know what I mean? I wouldn’t let him. Snoop is my boy and he’s gonna be my boy forever. But that has nothing to do with business. It’s all good. He came through my new house and played me a copule of new cuts and all that. Who knows, maybe in the future we might work together again. Right now I’m just concentrating on all the new artists that I have, all the new Snoop Doggs. Not like that, but you know what I mean.

And in terms of anybody else at Death Row, you still cool with them? Dogg Pound or whoever else?
Everybody from the label has called me up since the split up. They were like, ‘Whatever happened, it’s all good. We got your back. It’s all love.’ Only people at Death Row that I give respect and props to are the people that were involved with The Chronic album, that’s Death Row. Everybody else to me just saw the bandwagon and hopped on it to make some money.

Death Row Records has been unusually tight-lipped about the breakup. Suge said no to a comment. And in television and newspaper interviews, Snoop has opted to stay silent. Their publicist says relations are fine between the two factions. “Dre is still cool with everyone here,” said Death Row spokesman George Pryce. “This was a business decision and not an emotional thing.” There was no verbal parting of the ways between Suge and Dre. Rumors of an argument at a nightclub in L.A are untrue, according to Dre. Dre simply got his lawyers to make calls and start the settlement process with Death Row’s lawyers. The shocking split at the “Motown of the 90s” was played out in back rooms of legal offices and supposedly never involved a fist fight.
Since its inception, Death Row Records has been the subject of controversy and praise. From Snoop’s real life “Murder Was the Case” to C. Delores Tucker’s grandma-like finger pointing that nudged Time Warner into dropping Interscope, Death Row has easily become the most talked about independent lable of the 1990s.
The company was launched in 1992 after Dre felt he had been the victim of shifty business ways and wiggled his way out of a contract dispute with Eazy E’s Ruthless Records. With money Knight earned from the publishing rights of Vanilla Ice, he and Dre convinced Interscope to put them on. The result was a triple platinum platter that showcased Tha Dogg Pound, Lady of Rage and Snoop. Dre’s layered funk, splashed with a dash of Parliament, did more than just boost his career, it firmly cemented his rep as rap’s best producer of the moment. The Chronic had the music industry buzzing.
“The Chronic was not just what you heard but what went behind it,” Dre says fondly, remembering his comeback album. “And what we went through to make the motherfucker. That album had a lot of sentimental shit on it. Not just how many records it sold. Snoop’s album sold more than The Chronic, but I think The Chronic is a better album...and had to set the standard. The whole second side of Snoop’s album was done in two days. We went through about nine fifths of Hennessy. We was up for like two days. I was under house arrest at the time and I couldn’t leave the studio anyway.”
That little bit of studio time paid off a year later when Snoop’s Doggystyle sold nearly five million copies. Afater the album broke records and established him as a superstar, Snoop always gave shout outs to Dre for supplying musical vision. It was a surprise, then, when rumors surfaced that Suge was angry because Dre didn’t support Snoop at the Long Beach rapper’s murder trial in Los Angeles.
    Why weren’t you there Dre?
“I don’t like the fuckin’ courtroom,” Dre says with finality. “That’s my reason for not going. I don’t like going up there and I never did. And I never will. I talked to lawyers all the time and I knew he was going to get off. And if Snoop wanted to chill, he came by the house and we kicked it. When I was locked down, Snoop didn’t come and see me. I didn’t take no offense to that shit. I was in jail. He was just in court. He never came down tot visit me one time. Did I say anything about that? No. ‘Cause I don’t give a fuck. I don’t even want you to see me in this fucking cell. Nigga, I will see you when I get home.”

[tnp]

The only Death Row member to publicly discuss Dre’s leaving was Tupac. He told two LA radio show hosts that Dre not showing at the trial was essentially a Benedict Arnold move. “Dre’s doing his own thing,” said Tupac to King Tech and Sway at KKBT’s Wakeup Show. “It don’t affect us. My take on what happened was that Snoop was on trial for murder, fighting for his life. Somebody said Dre was in his car. The jury believed that. We needed Dre to be there to say he wasn’t there. Once they would have saw Dre, they would have knows he (Snoop) wasn’t in the car. That would have saved Snoop’s whole case. Dre never showed up. He was too busy. When they told me that, I was like, no matter how dope he is, and Dre is one of my heroes in the music business, if he’s not down for his homeboy Snoop who brought him back when he was a relic, then I don’t want to be around him. Plus I feel as though what’s done in the dark will come to light. It’s secrets that everybody’s gonna find out about that I don’t have to player hate or snitch about.”
Dre responded to Tupac’s charge of abandoning ship by questioning Tupac’s ability to speak for the label he just joined. “How is it Tupac gonna say something about when it was time to get on the ship?” Dre asked out loud. “For one, I ain’t got nothing bad to say about Tupac. But from what I heard, Tupac was like, ‘fuck Dre.’ They had some type of Death Row party and he was all, ‘fuck Dre.’ Fuck that. I ain’t did nothing but help Tupac. I didn’t have to give up that song (“California Love”). And what he talking about Dre jumped ship? Dre built the ship that he’s on right now. All that is bullshit.”
He also agreed with the way the Notorious BIG has avoided speaking in public about his beef with Tupac. “To me, if somebody has a problem with me and he’s all out in the open talking about it, then what he wants me to do is respond,” Dre says. “I’m not going to satisfy him. Yeah, I think Biggie is doing the right thing by not responding to shit. He’s kicking it. Why should he respond? He’s chilling and making money. Nobody knows what the fuck he’s doing. If he ain’t happy with his wife, he has girls around that’s just doing what the fuck he wants them to do. He’s happy as fuck sitting in the Jacuzzi reading what so and so said about him and chilling. The same thing with me. I’ll be sitting in the Jacuzzi with a bottle of Cristal laughing at motherfuckers that’s out there talking about me.”
Dre’s departure does not leave Death Row Records without talented producers or an all-star cast of rappers and singers. Since he slipped in the back door with his cousin Snoop, Daz has been fine tuning his skills as a producer while Kurupt continues his lyrical gangbanging. And Hammer, The Lady of Rage, Jewell and Danny Boy are sure shot best sellers for the label.
The label’s main breadwinner, Snoop Doggy Dogg, isn’t going anywhere either. With his new record label, Doggystyle Records, Snoop will likely stay with Knight, who is also busy setting up Death Row East with Eric B. And with the guaranteed platinum of rap’s most volatile figure, Tupac Shakur, Suge won’t have to sell any of his 34 cars for cash any time soon.

EAST COAST KILLA/WEST COAST KILLA
“All this East coast/West coast shit has gotta be the most stupid shit I ever heard in life,” Dre says. “I’ma tell you what it is. It’s a concept. It’s another way for motherfuckers that don’t have the skills they need to keep up with the times to sell records. So if you get on a record and you talking this East coast/West coast shit it means you just trying to jump aboard this concept. See what I mean? It’s shit that the public wants to hear right now. A lot of people just jump on that.”

To deal with the situation exacerbated by the supposed “beef” between his old label and Puffy’s Bad Boy Records, Dre is producing a cut called “East Coast Killa/West Coast Killa.” “The song means if you talking this East coast/West coast shit, kill that noise,” Dre explains.
One half of the video for “East Coast Killa/West Coast Killa,” to be directed by Friday director F. Gary Gray, will be set in Los Angeles with Nas and KRS-One, while the other half will be shot in New York with RBX and King Tee grabbing the mic. The song’s opening line, where RBX says, “While childish MC’s battle over coastal fronts....” should set the stage for an important hip-hop summer.
It also looks like Dre will be working with Nas, Foxxy Brown and AZ on a group called The Firm, which will likely be released on Dre’s label. Capone, Noriega, Lord Shariff and a few West coast rappers will star on another album that Dre maintains will “be a unity type of thang that will be another Chronic.”
He admits that his boy Ice Cube, who has been at the heart of both the division and healing of the East/West drama, was a little upset by the notion of Dre making a bi-coastal B-boy collective. “That’s his thing,” Dre says. “Cube is my boy. We go back. That’s my nigga forever. Business is business. When it’s time to hook up, we do it. He can say whatever the fuck he wants to say. I have no problem with him feeling the way he does about the East coast. Do your thing, man. I got a different way of thinking about it. There is too much seperation already. Why do we need to add more?”
Steve Stoute, who manages Nas, feels Dre leaving Death Row is a sad ending for a strong Black label. Still though, Stoute said it was a smart move. “Everybody believes Dre is the best producer in music,” Stoute said in an interview. “Forget al the drama. Since the breakup I think Dre has just been focused on making music. True music people just want to make music.”

AN NWA REUNION, DOC, ROCK ‘N ROLL AND THE FUTURE
Though getting his label off and running is more important right now than a reunion album, Dre said he is still excited about the prospect of working with Cube, Yella and Ren. “Everybody’s talking about it,” he said. “Just gotta see what happens. I’m totally into that shit. The ultimate goal is to do an NWA movie about the life of NWA, and do a soundtrack for that. There’s a bunch of shit people ain’t even knowing about.”
But despite making amends with his NWA chums and RBX, don’t look for Dre to bring back another one of his former running buddies. “Man, fuck the DOC,” Dre says loudly. “Print it. DOC ain’t shit. But he’s my nigga. Let me explain that shit to you. As far as business goes, fuck DOC. That motherfucker did some ol’ shiesty shit, trying to forge my name on some shit. Stole my title, “Helter Skelter,” which is a title that I came up with for me and Cube’s album. He was always talking about the title. Next thing I know that’s what his album is called. So fuck DOC. Plus he’s trying to sue me about some shit other shit. Me and DOC will never do another fucking business deal ever again in life. He has a massive ego. What he should have did instead of trying to rap himself was just face the facts. My [DOC’s] shit don’t sound right. He just shoulda’ took the money that he got to do his record and started some kind of label or production company. And his album--that shit ain’t gonna go copper.”
Loud Records founder Steve Rifkind, who took Wu-Tang’s muffled grime and made it mainstream, thinks Dre can move hip-hop into new directions by finally being free to fuse different genres of music with hip-hop. “Even before all this East coast/West coast hype, Dre had major love on the East coast,” Rifkind said from New York. “I think his working with Nas is going to be incredible. And there are possibilities that he could do for rock what Rick Rubin did with Run DMC and Aerosmith.”
This has been on Dre’s mind as well. “I wanna do some Black rock n roll. That’s what I really want to try. I like doing some different shit. There’s some rock ‘n roll motherfuckers that are Black and haven’t had a chance to put their shit out....They’ll say there’s no market for Black rock ‘n roll, but I don’t believe that. I wanna try something in the future called Ghetto Metal. That’s what the sounds is gone be called. It’s gonna have my type of track with guitars and creative ass melodies. But it’s not going to be like no typical rock ‘n roll. It’s gonna be some shit that my audience is going to like.”
There’s no telling if rock aficionados will soon see Dre djing for Lenny Kravitz. That’s unpredictable like LA weather. And with the short, but storied history of Death Row records, we can all probably also agree that this won’t be the last roster change there either. But for now, Dre’s escape from Death Row has him feeling optimistic about the future. So while the world chatters their gums about what he’s doing, Dr. Dre just continues to hum himself to sleep with theme music for his new afterlife.
“You go through the worst time of your life before you get to the best,” Dre said, staring out at the ocean again,”...and I been there.”
From this poing on Dr. Dre is on cool out mode. “Sit with my girl, smoke some shit and make some bomb ass music. This is my life right here. Chilling on the beach, eating and doing interviews. Just kicking it.”

[tnp]

Sidebar: DRE DAY: THE DR. SPEAKS HIS MIND
ON RAP BEING UNDER ATTACK BY POLITICIANS:
“If I’m on the outside looking in and I don’t like hip-hop, why do I need to fuck with you and try to stop it when you’re fucking it up yourself? I can just sit back and watch. And wait for you to kill it. Same thing as gangbanging--people sit back and watch niggas kill each other. People that don’t like niggas can just sit back, without lifting a fucking finger, and the shit that they want to happen is getting done. Niggas is killing each other while they sit back and watch. The same thing goes for hip-hop. These Bob Dole and Delores Tucker motherfuckers, they can watch it as it kills itself. East coast versus West coast is the best thing that could have happened for them”

THE FUTURE OF HIP-HOP:
“People ask me in interviews where I think hip-hop is going. There’s no answer for that because I’m not a psychic. I’m not down with Dionne Warwick and shit. I don’thave no psychic friends. I think that gangsta rap is dead. Totally fucking dead. You can’t say bitch, hoe on a record no more and sell a million. It’s done. Niggas got to come with some skills now. Whether it be on the tracks or in your rhymes, you gotta come with some shit. Period. Can’t come with no ABC ass rhymes and sell no records.

“CALIFORNIA LOVE”
“I never hung out with Tupac or nothing. For that one song I decided I was going to start on my next album and I did “California Love.” It was just me on the song originally. I wanted that song to come out right then but I didn’t have a record out. So me and Suge got together and was like ‘Yo, let’s put this on Tupac’s album since it’s about to come out now.’ So what I did was take out my second verse and put in Tupac’s verse and let him do some adlibs at the end. Then bam, we do the video. That’s how it happened.”

WHY HE NEVER STRAYED FROM PRODUCING HIS OWN CIRCLE:
“I ain’t no industry ho. That’s what I call ‘em. Motherfuckers that produce for a million people. What do hoes do? They get paid for sex, right? You can’t just pay me some money for a track. I ain’t no industry ho. If I’m digging you and we kicking it, then we can do some business. Other than that, I can’t fuck with you. Money ain’t got nothing to do with it. Longevity is what I’m about.”

LAURYN HILL OF THE FUGEES:
“She’s so fucking dope to me. For a while I was trying to get at her. This was before her record came out. Now they got their thing going with the new album. So I stopped pursuing it. And I ain’t trying to get in the way of nobody doing their thing. I just thought she was dope and was one of the people I would like to work with. She’s the shit. Their album is dope. I love that album.”

HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH MICHEL’LE:
“I haven’t talked to Michel’le in a while. As far as she goes I have a different kind of love for her. She’s like my sister. We don’t get along. She’s doing her thing and I am doing mine. We only gotta communicate about our son.”

THE EAST COAST:
“I have never said fuck the East coast. I’ma represent where I’m from to the fullest. Because I love California. This is where I’m from and where I wanna die. I love LA. I been all over the world and I don’t think there’s another place like LA. As far as the East coast goes, I love them niggas. I think there are more hits coming out of the East coast today then outta the West. It’s a fact. Look at it. I don’t give a fuck if you from Afghanistan or some shit like that. If a motherfucker put out dope shit that I’m digging, I’m going to buy it. Period. I ain’t got no beef.”

WHAT MAKES A GOOD SONG:
“My formula is this: what I think is a good song is something that keeps your attention for the first 15 seconds. Because I was a DJ back in the day and that’s all I gave a song. I used to go to the record pool and listen to hundreds of records a day. So when you put that record on, you give that motherfucker 15 seconds. If it don’t grab you, then toss it. That’s how the listener is.”

HIS PHILOSOPHY ABOUT MAKING MUSIC:
“What I try to do is make records that’s better than anything that’s out. Then people follow me. So I’m gonna set the trend. I ust get these ideas. Shit just pops in my head. I could be sleep and wake up with an idea. Sometimes it just pops up or I hear something that sparks and idea. This is what seperates me from everybody else: the sounds I head in my head, I can get that on tape. You know the people that’s doing whack cuts don’t want the shit to be wack. They just don’t have the ability to get their idea on tape. They can’t get the sounds they want on tape. They settle for what they can get, I get in the studio and shit just comes. I got a gift.”

END

[Murrow]

Man, dope article, I laughed my ass off when Dre said D.O.C.'s shit won't go copper...LOL!

Anyway, another article on Dre that is very tight is the August '99 one with Dre on the cover.  Thet talk about Eminem, Aftermath and "2001."

[Now_Im_Not_Banned]

Props...

[Black_Smoke]

dope article homie

[The Watcher]

so.. by Dre's own standard, he's an industry ho now? nice one!

[teecee]

Somehow i missed this Source, and i have every Source almost from that time period.......very interesting read, i really appreciate the chance to read that article.  

-Kinda funny how Dre is an "industry hoe" now! Its all good....

-too bad Sam Sneed never went to the Aftermath (Sam Sneed was on FIRE before Dre left, they made some CLASSICS)....i hope they hook back up someday

[_That_Cracka_J]

But despite making amends with his NWA chums and RBX, don’t look for Dre to bring back another one of his former running buddies. “Man, fuck the DOC,” Dre says loudly. “Print it. DOC ain’t shit. But he’s my nigga. Let me explain that shit to you. As far as business goes, fuck DOC. That motherfucker did some ol’ shiesty shit, trying to forge my name on some shit. Stole my title, “Helter Skelter,” which is a title that I came up with for me and Cube’s album. He was always talking about the title. Next thing I know that’s what his album is called. So fuck DOC. Plus he’s trying to sue me about some shit other shit. Me and DOC will never do another fucking business deal ever again in life. He has a massive ego. What he should have did instead of trying to rap himself was just face the facts. My [DOC’s] shit don’t sound right. He just shoulda’ took the money that he got to do his record and started some kind of label or production company. And his album--that shit ain’t gonna go copper.”

^^^Funny how time heals shit...


Props again to tnp for typing out this article.

[Hydro]

Tight article. Thanks for typing this up.

[Young Dan Iza]

man dre is a genius! props 2 tnp!

[GangstaBoogy]

I ain't readin all that shiet, But ProPz to TNP for takin hiz tyme & Possin it.

[KVB]

Thanks a lot. That was a very interesting article...

[40oz GRApHire]

Great interview TnP, thanks alot   !