Trivia / Dr. Dre

• Creative Differences: The core of why he left Death Row in 1996. He was tired of the rampant financial mismanagement, while the increasingly violent environment of the label (by the mid-1990s, beatings were a common means of discipline for artists and staffers who displeased Suge Knight) disgusted him and many of its other old-timers.
• Creator Backlash: His earlier work in the "World Class Wreckin' Cru", which featured Dre sporting lipstick and mascara in the album artwork, in contrast to his later Gangsta Rap image. Eazy-E would use some of those pictures to mock Dre in the Real Muthaphuckkin G's video.
• Development Hell: Detox was one of the most infamous examples of this before it's cancellation - for 16 years, it was reportedly in the works; the only albums to rival it in terms of how mythical it was are Guns N' Roses' Chinese Democracy^note which took 11 years and The Beach Boys' Smile^note which took 37 years, but unlike Detox, those albums were released. Detox, on the other hand, was eventually canceled by Dre, and another album, Compton was released in its place.
• Referenced by...: Billy from Most Likely to Murder (2018) has a Dr. Dre poster in his room.
• Sequel Gap: His three albums have this. His debut album The Chronic came out in 1992, while its sequel 2001 took seven years until it was finally released in 1999. Then, his third and final album Compton took sixteen years when it was finally released in 2015.
• Uncredited Role: It's no secret that he often employs ghostwriters to write lyrics for him. Some notable ghostwriters include Snoop Dogg, Eminem and Kendrick Lamar.
• What Could Have Been: A lot of these tend to happen, such as the attempted N.W.A album reunion with Snoop Dogg and infamous of all, Detox, which spent years in development before fading away and becoming Compton.
  • Dre was also approached by Michael Jackson to produce Invincible in 2001, but he turned down the offer.
  • He was supposed to collaborate with Ice Cube on his solo debut:
  Ice Cube: When I went solo, I wanted Dr. Dre to do AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted, but Jerry Heller vetoed that... and I'm pretty sure Eazy didn't want Dre to do it. But Dre did want to do it; we gotta put that on record. Dre wanted to do my record, but it was just too crazy with the break-up.

---