Hip Hop Producers
Hip Hop Producers
Industry's Finest
- Dr. Dre'
- Kanye West
- The Neptunes
- David Banner
- Jermaine Dupri
- Lil' Jon
- Timbaland
- The Alchemist
- Just Blaze
[ Hip Hop Producers ]
Dr. Dre
[ Hip Hop Producers ]
More than any other rapper, Dr. Dre was responsible for moving away from the avant-noise
and political stance of Public Enemy and Boogie Down Productions as well as the party vibes of old-school rap.
Instead, Dre pioneered gangsta rap and his own variation of the sound, G-funk. BDP's early albums were hardcore
but cautionary tales of the criminal mind, but Dre's records with N.W.A. celebrated the hedonistic, amoralistic
side of gang life.
Dre was never much of a rapper -- his rhymes were simple and his delivery was slow and
clumsy -- but as a producer, he was extraordinary. With N.W.A. he melded the noise collages of the Bomb Squad with
funky rhythms. On his own, he reworked George Clinton's elastic funk into the self-styled G-funk, a slow-rolling
variation that relied more on sound than content. When he left N.W.A. in 1992, he founded Death Row Records with
Suge Knight, and the label quickly became the dominant force in mid-'90s hip-hop thanks to his debut, The
Chronic.
Soon, most rap records imitated its sound, and his productions for Snoop Doggy Dogg and Blackstreet
were massive hits. For nearly four years, G-funk dominated hip-hop, and Dre had enough sense to abandon it and
Death Row just before the whole empire collapsed in late 1996. Dre retaliated by forming a new company, Aftermath,
and while it was initially slow getting started, his bold moves forward earned critical respect. Dre (born Andre
Young, February 18, 1965) became involved in hip-hop during the early '80s, performing at house parties and clubs
with the World Class Wreckin' Cru around South Central Los Angeles and making a handful of recordings along the
way. In 1986, he met Ice Cube, and the two rappers began writing songs for Ruthless Records, a label started by
former drug pusher Eazy-E. Eazy tried to give one of the duo's songs, "Boyz-n-the Hood," to HBO, a group signed to
Ruthless. When the group refused, Eazy formed N.W.A. -- an acronym for Niggaz With Attitude -- with Dre and Cube,
releasing their first album in 1987. A year later, N.W.A. delivered Straight Outta Compton, a vicious hardcore
record that became an underground hit with virtually no support from radio, the press, or MTV. N.W.A. became
notorious for their hardcore lyrics, especially those of "Fuck tha Police," which resulted in the FBI sending a
warning letter to Ruthless and its parent company, Priority, suggesting that the group should watch their step.
[ Hip Hop Producers ]
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