Dr Dre Biography
Andre Romelle Young is one of the best producers of all time and his name is mentioned along with other music gurus in the industry like Timbaland, popularly referred by the title Dr. Dre, he is one of the longest serving acts of the West Coast hip hop and rap group and other successes like Eminem and Snoop Dogg have passed through him.
Dre was born on February 18 1965 in Compton, California, USA to teenage parents Verna and Theodore Young, he was schooled at the Vanguard Junior High School and the Roosevelt Junior High School. He also attended the Centennial High School in Compton, California and the Northrop Aviation Company, his was a kin of music lovers as Theodore Young had a band of his own an one of Dre’s half siblings was a lover of all things rap and together they would practice their rhymes, this half-brother also rose to prominence and took on the stage name Warren G. on the list of the family’s established music artists is Hood Surgeon, he is the first child to Dre and he was conceived out of a teenage love affair.
As a child Dre was troublesome and his mischief was not limited to the family home or to school but it extended to matters of the law where many a times he was put under lock up for months. The story of his childhood is no different from that of many other African- American rappers who rose from neighbourhoods that were used to the sounds of gunshots and where insecurity was a normal phenomenon. Dre was never interested in education and his consistent bad grades coupled with the movement from one school to another in order to avoid repeating a school year says it all, his teachers were happy to see the back of his head as he was transferred to another institution.
His career began in 1983 as a disk jockey for various clubs around California before he moved to join a rapping group named the World Class Wreckin' Cru, here he would go for tours and give performances on live talk shows. Dre and the group enjoyed relative success until 1986 when the group disbanded and Dre joined with fellow rapper Ice Cube to form the N.W.A group, the group had a bigger fan base and many of downtown California residents identified with the hard-core rap that aired messages of the daily struggles of Black Americans.
Dre left the group to join Death Row Records in 1991 and then he moved to Aftermath Entertainment in 1996, by the he had expanded his skills to include producing records for other musicians. With rising fame in the 90’s he released an album titled 2001 in 1999 and his list of clients in need or recording services included Eminem. Dre is still signed on to Aftermath Entertainment which he also founded and owns.
Dre is not only a rapper and producer, he also acts and some of his film credits are in Set It Off, Training Day, The Wash Sean, and Shady Talez to be released in 2012.
Besides the keyboards, Dre is skilled with turntables, samplers, synthesizers and drum machines.
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