Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
JUST WHAT THE DOCTOR ORDERED
DR DRE DOCUMENTARY IS A MUST-WATCH INSIGHT INTO HIS LIFE AND BUSINESS
The problem with social networks – and smart phones – is that it’s all too easy to do something stupid when you’re a bit drunk. To share a message, a photo or a video with the world – all you have to do is take that small device out of your pocket – and hit a few buttons. Next thing you know, you’ve maybe annoyed your ex. Or lost your job. Or made the papers. Drunk dialling has been replaced by drunk Facebooking.
Just ask Dr Dre. When a 3.2 billion Apple buyout of his Beats by Dre headphone empire was on the cards, he celebrated – as you would. One too many, and he posted a video online with him and a mate boasting about the Forbes list ‘changing in a big way’, while introducing himself as ‘the first billionaire hip hop star’. Keeping in mind, the deal wasn’t confirmed and that interested parties knew nothing about it. Also, his business partner – music mogul Jimmy Iovine – had made a specific point of telling Dre to ‘lie low’ and ‘say nothing’. Sort of like that bit in Goodfellas when Jimmy Conway tell’s his crew not to splash out on cars and expensive coats after the Lufthansa heist. Needless to say, Jimmy wasn’t super impressed with what he saw online. The incident is revisited at the very start of ‘The Defiant Ones’ – probably the best music documentary I’ve ever watched. Four episodes finally dropped on Netflix last week – and it’s pretty unmissable stuff. Dr Dre’s story is fascinating. Though we knew that already – apart from the fact there’s a movie about his life (Straight Outta Compton), his adventures with Tupac, Snoop Dogg and Eminem are well documented. Jimmy lovine though – he’s a different level. The first notable act he worked with – as a producer – was John Lennon. He’d then collaborate with Springsteen, Patti Smith, U2, Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty. Jimmy then moved away from the creative side of the industry – and towards business, setting up Interscope Records and working with Geffen and Death Row. He’d finance albums from No Doubt, Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, Lady Gaga and – most recently – Kendrick
Lamar. While all the aforementioned share remarkable anecdotes in ‘The Defiant Ones’, it’s Jimmy’s story – and the unveiling of how he does business – that’s most remarkable. He’s a man who worked in his bathroom for a year (long story) and who once hid Stevie Nicks in his basement (again, long story). He also comes across as a pretty unlikable – though he doesn’t seem to realise this – or more likely simply doesn’t care. That’s business.
Dre on the other hand – is portrayed as a gent, a family man. And despite the odd couple dynamic, together they changed the game. It was Jimmy who played Dre a tape he’d been given of a new act called Eminem. Dre responded, ‘Find him.
Now’. More recently, a scatty idea to make headphones, cooked up in a ten minute unscheduled chat by the beach one afternoon, got them into bed with Apple – and eventually that billion dollar paycheque.
It’s an incredible story – a bunch of incredible stories, really – that sort of weave together over forty odd years. And it’s told with real theatre, insight and drama. It’s also a series that made me want to be rich and live in California, but that happens most days anyway….