Here’s the thing: Even before he came out on stage during Eminem’s performance, Dr. Dre was already the star of the show. That’s what I was thinking, at least.
Nothing engages a crowd like the familiar, inimitable bounce of Dre’s grooves, and though Eminem apparently lacks the attention span to perform more than a single verse and chorus of any of his songs, his renditions of classic Dre-produced singles like “The Real Slim Shady” and “Kill You” were clear highlights, at least to those of us appreciative of the funk.
Then 50 Cent showed up and played “In da Club,” and it became unmistakably clear to me that this concert was really about exposing just how awesome Dr. Dre is at making hip-hop beats for stadiums full of drunken dancing revelers.
But for whatever reason, I didn’t consider the possibility that Dr. Dre would actually show up until he did show up. Eminem started “My Name Is…” — another funky Dr. Dre bounce — and got up to Dre’s lyrical cameo in that song, and the music stopped.
Then, after appropriate fanfare, Dr. Dre showed up. It was awesome.
They played “Still D.R.E.” and then “Nuthin’ but a G Thang” with Eminem doing the Snoop Dogg part. During the latter, 50 Cent came back out on stage and it looked for a moment like he might be there to do something, about which I felt ambivalent.
But it turned out 50 Cent was just there to watch Dr. Dre do stuff, and that’s cool. I don’t imagine me and 50 Cent have all that much in common, but one thing we seem to share is that we both appreciate Dr. Dre. That’s good to know in case I’m ever in a situation in which I have to make idle chit-chat with 50 Cent.
Then Dr. Dre more or less promised that his long-awaited third album is coming out soon and is going to be awesome. I don’t remember exactly how he said it but I think he included something like, “Y’all know I won’t let you down.” And I believe him.
Later, Jay-Z hosted a musical revue featuring a bunch of artists I wasn’t particularly interested in seeing, like Kanye West and Drake and Chris Martin of Coldplay. He had a tight band with a horn section and an amazing light show and computer-graphics display, but the performance entirely lacked Dr. Dre.
Tedquarters 
Sounds like an awesome show. Dr. Dre is the man. I’m not a huge fan of hip hop and rap anymore mainly because most of todays new stuff blows.
I’ve always been more or a fan of rock music in general but I did used to listen to a decent amount of rap and hip hop when I was younger, but most of the stuff put out today is just garbage.
If you go to the ‘rap’ playlist on my ipod theres probably nothing post early 2000’s on there. There just doesnt seem to be another Dr. Dre, or Snoop, or Tupac, or Biggie comming along. Kanye West is huge, but his stuff IMO is awful.
Missing out on that concert is a big regret for 2010. Good to know it would have been worth it
Im a fan of hip-hop but recent lyricists have been weak… Drake actually has a nice flow
I’m not a big hip hop/rap music kind of person, so I’m just talking about the main stream kind stuff.
I’m sure there are still some real good lesser known hard core rappers out there producing some good stuff, but the main stream music has just changed.
They have Em and Dre in the same building, and they don’t do Forgot About Dre? What a shame.
“Nowadays everybody wanna talk like they got something to say but nothing comes out when they move their lips, just a bunch of jibberish, these motherf***ers acting they forgot about Dre.”
Hey Ted, this would be impossible for me to explain in 140 character tweets, so I’ll just do it here.
As I mentioned on twitter, Dre is known to use “ghost producers” on some tracks on which he gets sole production credit. This is tough to substantiate because it’s such a touchy and ambiguous subject in hiphop. And obviously, Dre would never go on record and admit it.
It’s been talked about in hiphop circles since “Chronic 2001” was released when he had a production team working with him, including Scott Storch (former Roots keyboardist and now super-producer himself). Dre isn’t known for his instrumental skills, so he usually relies on others like Storch to lay down riffs, basslines, etc. Though to his credit, he’s probably the one who lays down drums and ultimately sequences these beats.
In fact, if you check out his production discography (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Dre_production_discography), it’s littered with co-producers whom he does give credit to. Notables: Storch did the famous riff on Still DRE and Xzibit’s X. A key guy named Mel-Man co-produced Chronic 2001 and The Marshall Mathers LP, doing significant synthesizer work on Xxplosive, Next Episode, Forgot About Dre, and Real Slim Shady.
My personal take is, he established himself by doing the bulk of production for the original Chronic and Doggystyle. But after he reached celebrity status, he needed to enlist others just to keep up with demand, which is completely fine.
Where it gets fuzzy is, how many no-name producers did he work with who never appeared on liner notes? I’m sure there’s more than a few, which probably isn’t that big of a deal given how hiphop production works in the first place (sampling, drum machines, etc). It’s just that a lot of people solely associate Dre with certain classic tracks, when much of the time he actually has a team of co-producers working for him.
This brings up a pretty interesting discussion about collective vs. individual art in general, but one I am not prepared to begin right now because I am going on about three hours of sleep. I’ll pick this back up tomorrow though, thanks for taking the time to hash this out beyond Twitter.
Ted, no problem.. just thought I’d throw it out there for those who weren’t aware and since I know you appreciate good hiphop music.
Shamik, that’s actually a hilarious and pretty accurate way of putting it!
So Dr. Dre is the Don Draper of hip-hop (“C’mon Creative, get creative!”)? I can see that.