27 Facts About Dr. Dre You Probably Didn't Know
1.
Dr. Dre fathered a child when he was just 16 years old. They didn’t meet until his son was 20 years old. His son Curtis was raised by his mother, and is currently a rapper that goes under the name Hood Surgeon.
2.
Dr. Dre has become a hip hop mogul over the last few years. In 2014, he earned approximately $20 per second.
3.
Dr. Dre was in a band called World Class Wreckin’ Cru before he joined N.W.A. Before being called World Class Wreckin’ Cru, they were known as the Disco Construction, and they were a electronic funk band.
4.
Eazy-E gave Dr. Dre his start after bailing him out of jail after Dr. Dre got arrested for having unpaid parking tickets. Dr. Dre was asked to produce the hit single Boyz-N-The-Hood, which led him to be the producer for Ruthless Records.
6.
Eazy-E sued Dr. Dre in 1992 claiming he broke his contract with Ruthless Records. Rumor has it that Suge Knight, along with his friends carrying bats came in and intimidated them to release Dr. Dre and other artists from their Ruthless Records contract. The lawsuit was settled when Easy-E was given a percentage of Dr. Dre’s future sales.
7.
During the lawsuit, Eazy-E tried to embarrass Dr. Dre by releasing a picture of him with his old band World Class Wreckin’ Cru.
8.
Dr. Dre originally went by Dr. J. Julius Erving was his favorite basketball player, but he ended up changing it to Dre, which reflects his real name, Andre.
9.
Dr. Dre earned a whopping $52 million in 2001. He sold his share of Aftermath Entertainment to Interscope Records. Because of this, he was the 2nd highest paid music artist that year.
10.
Dr. Dre decided to get into music after he heard Grandmaster Flash’s song The Adventures Of Grandmaster Flash On The Wheels Of Steel. Dr. Dre said, “That made me want to DJ. It made me want to know what hip-hop was. That was the song that did it. I immediately went home and called some friends and we were taking apart one of my friend’s mother’s stereo sets.. We figured out how to make a mixer from the balance button and got it cracking—started making mix tapes.”
11.
Dr. Dre has lost two of his brothers. When Dr. Dre was just one year old, his brother Jerome passed away from pneumonia. His half brother Tyree passed away and Dr. Dre dedicated the song The Message on his album Chronic 2001 to him.
12.
Dr. Dre founded a company called Beats By Dre, which sells high end headphones. A whopping 59% of high end headphones sold now are Beats By Dre beating out Bose.
13.
California Love which was made famous by Tupac, was originally set to be Dr. Dre’s first album. But Suge Knight changed that up when he had Tupac appear on the second verse making it officially Tupac’s song.
14.
Dr. Dre ended up leaving Death Row Records because he didn’t like the violent atmosphere. This was in 1996, then he started Aftermath Entertainment. When he left Death Row, he was still owed $50 million, but said, “You can’t put a price on a peaceful state of mind.”
16.
In 2004, Suge Knight paid someone $5,000 to attack Dr. Dre at the Vibe Awards asking for an autograph. Dr. Dre was not injured.
17.
Dr. Dre ended up suing Death Row Records for $3 million dollars, but lost the case because there wasn’t enough proof of contracts.
18.
Dr. Dre and The Neptunes are the only hip hop producers to win Producer Of The Year at the Grammys.
19.
Dr. Dre had a son named Andre Young Jr, but he passed away at 20 years old in 2008 from a drug overdose. He was found in Dr. Dre’s house after overdosing on heroin and morphine. He has a total of 5 children.
20.
Beats By Dre came about while talking to Jimmy Iovine about selling sneakers. Iovine said, “The whole headphones thing came to life on its own. Dre and I were out in Malibu, I know some of you think Dre lives in the hood, but he has a house in Malibu. Anyway, we’re on his terrace in Malibu, and he says, ‘My lawyers want me to sell sneakers.’ I look at him and I say, ‘Fuck sneakers. Nobody cares what kind of sneakers you wear, but they would care about the speakers you use.’ And speakers turned into headphones.”
21.
To highlight the ups and downs of N.W.A., a movie will be released in August 2015 called Straight Outta Compton. It’ll show the beginning of N.W.A. in the industry and documents the stories behind Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, Mc Ren, and DJ Yella.
22.
The Chronic was not Dr. Dre’s biggest selling album. His album 2001 was actually his biggest selling ever resulting in it becoming certified sextuple Platinum.
23.
In 2014, Dr. Dre was the highest paid musician per Forbes magazine. He sold Beats By Dre to Apple for $3 billion!!!! After taxes, Dr. Dre pocketed $620 million!
24.
Eminem began shouting in his songs thanks to inspiration from Dr. Dre. Eminem said, “Dre also showed me how to do things with my voice that I had no idea I could do. He had me screaming in the studio! I remember doing the chorus for ‘Role Model,’ shouting, “Don’t you want to grow up to be just like me?” My throat was hurting. Dre would be, “Again. Do it again.” And we stacked a few tracks to make the chorus. If you listen to ‘Kim,’ where I’m screaming, you can hear it.”
25.
Once Dr. Dre left Death Row Records, Snoop Dog refused to record any new music with them. He realized that once Dr. Dre left, Death Row would own anything he made. He waited for his contract to expire before making any new music.
26.
Dr. Dre has been married to his wife, Nicole Threatt, for almost 20 years. They got married in 1996 and have two children together.
27.
I would say that Dr. Dre is doing pretty well. In 2014, he purchased a home in Los Angeles for $40 million. It was once owned by Gisele Bundchen and Tom Brady.
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