Guest Blog: Still Dre

I asked for bloggers and now I have to own up to it. At least once a week I'll try and post a guest blog on top of my two. I would first like to apologize to Tom, this week's blogger. He actually sent me this a month ago but I was waiting for more people to send theirs in. So, at long last, here is Thomas Henry's first, and hopefully not last, blog. Any comments I make are in italics.

-Don Woods

Six hours ago I was only a casual reader of this blog. Before I was merely a reader, having read and shared with Donny my thoughts on the topics he discussed (usually complaining that he didn’t cite me when ever Jesse Hall was mentioned). And then came the life changing moment, I received a text from Donny asking me to contribute to his blog. (I just think he wanted to feel like William Randolph Hurst). So I figured I would try my hand.

Editor's Note: I do want to be like Hearst, minus the "killing a man on a yacht" part of his life.

It took me a couple of hours to decide what I wanted to write my first blog about and as I laid in bed attempting to go to sleep I began to run over topics that had been bugging me recently. Well ultimately, I decided to write about something that I had recently fallen in love with. And that is the most recent single by Dr. Andre Romelle Young, but for the rest of the article we ll just call him Dr. Dre.

Note: Not an actual doctor.

Now I am by no stretch of the imagination a rap fan. But I have always enjoyed anything that Dr. Dre has had a hand in (why did NWA break up again?). Anyway, for those of you who have not heard the song yet, stop reading and go watch the music video on Youtube. Go ahead I’ll wait. And do me a favor watch the whole damn thing I know that the music doesn’t start for three minutes but the thing is a work of art. And please just ignore the weird things that Skylar Grey does, I don’t know who she is or what she is doing so just let it go.

Paging Dr. Dre....

Anyway seriously I am in love with this song (and video), which is a big deal for me. Honestly the last rap song I really enjoyed to this level was I Think My Dads Gone Crazy by Eminem (notice how it all feeds back to Dre in the end?)(Note to self: white, suburban people loving Eminem for future topic). Anyway, I really thought that this song deserved a shout out to a crowd that I am assuming has yet to hear it because, like Donny, I still consider Quadrophenia to be the end all be all of musical accomplishments. (or Ferris Bueller’s rendition of Twist and Shout).

Quadrophenia: Great album or greatest album?

In all seriousness though this song is awesome, and it really shows how much Dr. Dre has meant to rap since the genre's inception (for some reason he feels the need to do this about once every ten years, anybody else remember a song called Forgot About Dre?). I do think the world does need to be reminded about Dre, just look at the changes in the pictures that get flashed up. Dre’s been around for so long that he pre-dates gangsta-rap. That’s right, the guy who influenced Biggie and Tupac is still alive … that’s gotta be some sort of miracle.

Dre as a gangsta: Exhibit A.

Really though this song just shows how much life has changed for Dr Dre over the past 25 years that he has been a performer (and that's rounding down). He has been involved with every major change that has gone on with the rap game since 1986 when he founded NWA and the beginnings of gangsta-rap. Since then, just look at the names of the artists that he helped come into the national spotlight. Hell, Snoop Dogg and Eminem should be enough to convince anyone that he has left his mark. Regardless once again, Dr. Dre comes forward and reminds the world that yes I am still alive and do more than commercials for Dr. Pepper.

I must've drank me 15 Dr. Peppers.

In one of the classiest moves I’ve seen in a whil,e the video fades to black while Dre stands over Eric Wright’s grave and you can just see the regret all over his face. For those of you who don’t know who Eric Wright is, he was Eazy-E (a member of NWA) who died in 1995 shortly after making amends with Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg (after NWA broke up they didn’t really get along so well … their solo albums at the time were testaments to their mutual hatred).

Songs about hating Dre and his affinity for hats (may have made that last part up).

The reason I decided to pick this topic as my first article is because I think that it will be one of Dr. Dre’s songs that transcend his typical audience, and also the song has yet to get the chart recognition that it truly deserves.

-Thomas Henry