Famed rapper and producer Andre “Dr. Dre” Young announced recently to several prominent hip-hop publications his plans to retire from his career as a prolific rapper. This comes as a surprise to rap fans and haters alike, none of whom can seemingly go more than 10 feet without hearing a Dre verse coming from a car radio or a local storefront. “If there’s one thing Dre likes to be doing,” commented Dre protégé Eminem, “it’s rapping raps.”
Rap, a popular style of talk-singing invented by professional boxer Muhammad Ali, entered its “gangsta” phase in the late 1980s, due in part to the album Straight Outta Compton by Dr. Dre’s own rap team, N.W.A.. Dre went on to record two very popular rap albums, each of which he named after the same bag of really good weed. Dre’s long-awaited third rap album, The Detox, is due to drop in early 2011 (possibly February), and will be available as a single CD and as a box set containing Weezer’s Songs from the Black Hole and the PC game Duke Nukem Forever. Listen to the first single, “Kush,” over at Dre’s website.
“I got rhymes in my mind embedded like an embryo.” - Dr. Dre, 1988
“Going into the mic booth, that shit is over.” - Dr. Dre, 2010
• Dr. Dre: http://www.drdre.com
