Big Pun’s 1998 version of the same rhythm, Twinz, might be even better. As a rapper, he’s upstaged by Snoop, but it’s all about the beat, which turns a sample from Sly and the Family Stone’s joyous Sing a Simple Song into something ominous, overlaid with a double bass and off-key horns. Dr Dre ft Snoop Doggy Dogg – Deep Cover (1992)ĭre’s post-NWA solo debut was a ferocious statement of intent. In contrast to G-funk’s slickness, it sounds slightly ungainly, jerky and off-kilter even – as Dre suggested – “annoying”: the perfect backdrop for Eminem to introduce his disturbing Slim Shady character. It’s de rigueur to point out that the sample on My Name Is was played by Chas and Dave more important is how brilliantly Dre uses it. Photograph: Gary Friedman/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images 7. In place of NWA’s furious screw-you nihilism, it feels equivocal, thoughtful, even troubled by the cycle of street life it depicts, a mood embodied by the mournful Donny Hathaway sample that provides its chorus. Dr Dre – Lil’ Ghetto Boy (1992)Įasily overlooked amid The Chronic’s bigger hits, Lil’ Ghetto Boy is the album’s emotional centre. The beat could have been on that album, Eve’s rap is suitably tough, but Gwen Stefani’s chorus is the perfect sweetener: it became a global smash. Eve ft Gwen Stefani – Let Me Blow Ya Mind (2001)ĭespite Dre’s protestations, Let Me Blow Ya Mind demonstrated how adaptable to pop 2001’s sound was. If so, it’s a great soundtrack to the end credits: flurries of strings sampled from François de Roubaix’s Dernier Domicile Connu (also the source for, of all things, Robbie Williams’s Supreme) and live horns, including an exquisite jazzy solo.
The closing track of Dre’s 2015 album Compton sounded remarkably like Dre bidding farewell to his career as a rapper. In Da Club is as about as bleak and omnious-sounding a party-starting banger as it is possible to imagine. That said, 50 Cent sold millions, and at their best his collaborations with Dre have a creepy power. 50 Cent – In Da Club (2003)Īfter the dazzling invention and technical brilliance of Eminem, Dre’s next superstar protege was a backwards step, with tired gangsta cliches exploiting a lurid backstory. He is effortlessly out-rapped by Eminem – whose spectacular guest appearance was later lauded by Kendrick Lamar as the best verse on Dre’s album 2001 – but the producer’s bullish recounting of his achievements is lent weight by how good the music is: the perfect expression of 2001’s chilly, bare post-G-funk sound. But Fast Lane is amazing: the Curtis Mayfield-esque vocal and lush harmonies crashing against a sinister Dre beat, decorated with an eerie, shimmering organ and crawling analogue synth. In the aftermath of Eminem’s vast success, Bilal made for an unlikely Dr Dre collaborator: a “conscious” neo-soul artist, affiliated to Questlove’s Soulquarians collective.
He also paid homage to funk pioneer Roger Troutman, whose talk box provides the hook. Like Blackstreet’s No Diggity, which Dre worked on incognito, California Love is powered by a piano riff – this one sampled from Joe Cocker’s 1972 track Woman to Woman. In 1996 Dre wisely fled Death Row, a label about to go horrifyingly out of control, but not before producing one final anthem. How We Do’s success rests on Dre’s spare, gripping production: a spindly hook endlessly repeated over old-school 808 beats. There was a marked decline in the quality of MCs Dre worked with in the early 00s: 50 Cent wasn’t anything like as talented as Eminem, and the Game wasn’t anything like as talented as 50 Cent. Express Yourself’s use of the bouncy Charles Wright original was a masterstroke, both commercially minded and at odds with NWA’s relentlessly grim subject matter: even the relatively benign lyrics here are filled with violence. NWA – Express Yourself (1988)ĭre’s handful of mid-80s productions for the World Class Wreckin Cru showed promise, but NWA’s Straight Outta Compton was something else. (from left) DJ Yella, MC Ren, Eazy-E and Dr Dre in 1991.
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