Posts: 2

1. 

   Hip-Hop History

   24.Mar.08, 21:55 EDT
   
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   An interview with "Rollin’ with Dre" co-author Bruce Williams
   By Donnell Alexander/MOLI
   
   Obviously, I’m biased, but my sense is that this is the interview Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine don’t want you to read.
   
   “The public thinks Dre’s a real gangsta and does gangsta things,” says Bruce Williams, Andre Young’s former top lieutenant and my co-author on the brand-new book Rollin’ with Dre. “And they think our crew does gangsta things, when it’s totally the opposite. It’s funny.”
   
   This is not to say that our book isn’t compelling. Williams went from military life to the heart of Hollywood life in the wake of The Chronic. More than a tell-all, the words are — like our book’s 16 pages of rare, candid photos — the story of what it takes to make great records.
   
   To me, the most shocking anecdote is how Dre would repair to Reno to make his most anticipated releases. As someone who’s spent 15 years or so in and out of studios with hip-hop artists who would be happy to reach a tenth of Dre’s audience, I know that the standard M.O. is to get as deep into the ’hood as possible in order to access a mythic “authenticity.” Who knew you might wanna go away from the ghetto to depict its tough streets with funk and clarity?
   
   Williams addresses all of the dirt folks want to talk about: Dee Barnes, Suge Knight, and the “Dre is gay” talk. More importantly, my co-author reveals small moments like off-the books freestyle sessions with Eminem and Kid Rock and big deals such Al Sharpton’s shady role in “squashing” the beef between 50 Cent and the Game. I’m also high on Williams's explanation of the delays behind the long-awaited final album, Detox, which The Onion correctly characterized as the hip-hop version of Guns & Rose’s Chinese Democracy.
   
   Ultimately, Rollin’ with Dre is about pioneering reality entertainment, only with an extremely funky producer and street narratives where star editors and star searches might be. I’m proud of it because the book allowed me to interpret and give voice to ... an unstated fact in the book, something that Bruce wouldn’t ever say. (But, fuck it, it's my turn now: Dre’s ass was arrested on the regular before he met this dude. And then, voila, suddenly his name wasn’t in the police log anymore. Along with Jimmy Iovine and Dre’s wife Nicole, a pair who don’t come off so swell in Rollin’ with Dre, someone enabled that Compton motherfucker to simply make classic music.
   
   What was interesting about how Snoop Dogg came of age?
   
   You watched a kid in the business, 17 or 18 or whatever, evolve and turn into a man. You saw him go through all of these things, first with Death Row and then when he went to No Limit, where people was talkin’ shit about him. What you have to understand is that he was learning to run a business. Master P was telling him to own his own shit. He went on to TVT, and look at him now.
   
   Because of the Woldermariam shooting and the No Limit wilderness years, it was easy to think here’s just another guy who’s gonna just fall off.
   
   It’s a learning experience: "I went through this. Now let me go through this, learn from that, and keep building." That’s the most interesting part. He didn’t just start and stop.
   
   Let's talk about how Em came into Aftermath.
   
   He just needed a few pieces of the puzzle. He needed to be validated. He wasn’t getting a deal. He was shoppin’ them like a motherfucker, but nobody would sign him because he was a white rapper. But when you come around and get to D.R.E., you just got baptized. Baptized in hip-hop, like Creflo Dollar. That gospel just took him to a whole ’nother level.
   
   Why do you think Detox turned into such a fiasco?
   
   Because it’s an album that, I think, Dre don’t really wanna do. It’s very hard to do an album in hip-hop at the age of 42 or 43. It’s difficult to stay in tune with the 12 and 14-year-old kids.
   
   You grew up on fuck the police. You grew up on sayin’ smoke weed every day. Fucked all the bitches and shot up all the dudes in the world. So, what can you — at 43 — say that’s gonna make people wanna get they boogie on?
   
   So he painted himself into a corner with his subject matter?
   
   Yeah. You have to have some type of balance in there. You can’t just continue to go “gangsta, gangsta, gangsta” when you’re improving your life.
   
   I know that he’s a perfectionist and that if he ever finishes it, it’s gonna be dope, but the way the pieces are coming together now? Anybody and everybody is turning in material. It just doesn’t seem well. The Chronic[s were] West Coast albums. The last Chronic, 2001, Big Boi from Outkast used to call Dre all the time; he wanted to get on the album. But he couldn’t get on because of the vibe and how Dre had set the album up.
   
   A lot of people think of Dre and N.W.A as “real street niggas,” but it seems like the music became entertainment instead of something like reporting over beats. Or was it always just entertainment?
   
   They just found a new way to entertain people. Everybody wants reality, wants to know what’s goin’ on. “I wanna see somebody in real life.” They just brought “real life” to you back then, and maybe they weren’t ready. But I guess they was.
   
   They tried to keep us away from things, as kids, without explaining them to us. What the streets were really about. They just tried to keep you away from those things. And I think kids just got tired of that. Kids want you to tell them what’s really going on: “Don’t tell me what’s goin’ on behind closed doors and I gotta go on later in life and find out what’s goin’ on behind that closed door.” That can be detrimental to a person. They started talkin’ about real, everyday stuff that’s goin’ on, especially if you live in the ’hood.
   
   The new L.A. Times allegations about the 1994 shooting of Tupac are causing a stir. Rollin’with Dre weighs in about “Who Shot Ya?" and all that, but what do you think about the latest?
   
   Remember what ’Pac said: He was goin’ to the studio to work with those cats. When th[e shooting] happened, nobody came by the hospital or said anything. So, I can’t say they set him up or whatever. I don’t know if ’Pac was upset because they never came to the hospital to say what’s up or we’re sorry or we’ll try to find out who did this shit to you. I think that escalated a whole lot of things.
   
   What about the photos. There’s you being Dre’s best man, him playing piano while you kiss your future wife, Ice Cube, Roger Troutman, Snoop and Em and so on working in the studio. Did you know you had this trove sitting around?
   
   Actually, they were just sitting in a box somewhere. People were always snappin’ pictures and I would step out the way and leave that for the artists, but I kept pictures that were cool to me. And I put in pictures that would help people understand that cats really worked.
   
   What’s Jimmy Iovine gonna say when he reads this book?
   
   He’s gonna be like, “Goddamn Bruce!”
   
   No, really, he’s gonna be like: Damn, he got everybody right. He’ll never admit it, but yeah.
   
   Donnell Alexander is the MOLI View's contributing editor for Sports & Fitness. He posts Mondays and Thursdays.
   

2. 

   Find Out About Dre

   24.Mar.08, 16:25 EDT
   
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   As Dre’s confidant and the problem-solver to a stable of artists and others who came to know him as “Uncle Bruce,” Williams was either there when the action went down or close enough to feel the hollowpoints whiz by. Inside you’ll find:
   
   • The inside dirt on the machinations of the music industry and the sex, violence and power that drives the hip hop music machine and the west coast scene in particular.
   
   • Dre's early days with N.W.A., through the explosion of his seminal album, The Chronic, and up to the release of Dre's long-anticipated forthcoming album, Detox.
   
   • The story of getting out from under Death Row Records, the label Dre co-founded with impresario Suge Knight.
   
   • Inside the launching the careers of Eminem, 50 Cent, and The Game.
   
   • Dish on Tupac Shakur’s chaotic rise and fall to the deadly feud between Tha Row (formerly Death Row Records) and East Coast MCs and bigshots as well as Suge’s legal battles.
   
   • Dre’s reconciliation with Eazy-E before E’s untimely demise from AIDS.
   
   • What was behind the reconciliation press conference for 50 Cent and The Game—and the surprising role Al Sharpton played in it.
   
   • Dre's practical joke on Will Smith in the film Bad Boys 2—and the real reason behind it.
   
   • What it was like rollin’ with giants and legends-in-the-making—and living the life (and bearing the burdens) as a bona-fide master of the game.