Secret of Dre’s success
IF ANYONE knows what it’s like to be the personification of a phoenix, it’s Dr Dre. The legendary producer and really bad sometimes rapper came back to life from Death Row.
Out of the ashes of NWA and a partnership with Suge Knight that really could’ve cost him his life, he rose and soared to form the cheekily and aptly named Aftermath Entertainment.
And through all that, there was a man who was always by Dre’s side: Jimmy Iovine.
As the head of Interscope Records (the company Aftermath grew under), Iovine had the inside track on the changes in music and, along with Dre, managed to do what many in music couldn’t: they got ahead of the curve. Together, they launched Beats By Dre. They then sold Beats to Apple for $3.2 billion. It was the largest sum Apple had ever paid in order to acquire, well, anything. How did Dre and Iovine manage to pull that off ?
Their story is told in The Defiant Ones, which can be streamed on HBO.
Over four parts, The Defiant Ones takes you through the history of these two powerhouses and shows us how they put in their 10 000 hours to be some of the best the game has ever seen.
But it starts with something everyone wanted to know: how did they keep such a mammoth deal so quiet?
Dr Dre almost ruined it for himself, for Iovine and for hip hop. And it’s all Tyrese’s fault.
Dre got drunk with Tyrese and like a millennial, Tyrese, went and whipped his phone out and shot a video for social media announcing it. Iovine had to put out fires and, in The Defiant
Ones, he tells the viewer how he did it. They say success leaves clues and if you’re interested in getting the upper hand on an industry that isn’t too kind to the artists, this is the film you should see. Visit hbo.com to watch The Defiant Ones.