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Dr. Dre portrait circa 1991

Dr. Dre

Photo: Raymond Boyd/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

News
Dr. Dre's Classic: 'The Chronic' At 25 dr-dres-chronic-25-years-later

Dr. Dre's 'The Chronic': 25 Years Later

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Take a look back at the super producer's solo magnum opus from the inside out
Kathy Iandoli
GRAMMYs
Dec 15, 2017 - 10:19 am

In 2010 Kanye West heaped some high praise on Dr. Dre's The Chronic: He called the album the hip-hop equivalent of Stevie Wonder's 1976 Album Of The Year GRAMMY winner, Songs In The Key Of Life.

"It's the benchmark you measure your album against if you're serious," West wrote for Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Artists list, which ranked Dre at No. 56.

The Chronic was a series of coincidences backed by like-minded individuals all with one goal in mind: to create a work that would stand the test of time. It was a perfect storm — yielding one GRAMMY for Best Rap Solo Performance for "Let Me Ride." The Chronic would go on to sell millions, and like West mused, would serve as the prototype for any serious musician who existed within the hip-hop space.

A quarter-century later, its presence is still felt in the aftershocks of an earthquake that was more than a year in the making.

When The Chronic arrived on Dec. 15, 1992, Dr. Dre was living life in a vacuum. He was coming off the high of the post-N.W.A era, where his friendship with Eazy-E had rotted considerably and de-facto group leader Ice Cube vehemently parted ways with both N.W.A and Ruthless Records to pursue his own solo trajectory.

Dre was still somewhat wound around the pen of manager Jerry Heller that inked his recording contract years earlier, though Suge Knight — a then-strong-yet-silent enforcer — would handle the messiness while Dre focused on his solo debut LP via Death Row Records (with Interscope Records serving as the distributor).

Societally, the country was in a state of flux. The Los Angeles riots had finally dwindled in mid-May 1992, though the scars of the Rodney King verdict and a constant cloud of police brutality lingered in the streets. While The Chronic boasts a sufficient amount of fun, weed, money, and women, there still exists an element of anger fueled by both Dre's beef with Eazy as well as the ongoings of a world as seen through Dre's then-27-year-old eyes.

Once Dre met Snoop Doggy Dogg (as he was then called) through stepbrother Warren G, it was truly trouble when Compton and Long Beach, Calif., came together. Dre had already laid a foundation for his sound by the time the final N.W.A album, 1991's Niggaz4Life, would drop, but there was a vibe he was after. Snoop — possessing a mix of gang ties and weed smoke — when paired with Dre's P. Funk sampling, mixed with breaks and live instruments, provided an aggressive yet relaxed sound.

Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg in 1993

Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg at the 1993 MTV Movie Awards
Photo: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic.com/Getty Images

"It wasn't actually a sound, rather it was a production method," explains Dan Charnas, author of The Big Payback: The History Of The Business Of Hip-Hop and professor at New York University's Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. "It was [Dre's] blending of breakbeats undergirded by real instruments. There was sort of this cleanliness and presence to his production that very much contrasted the noise ethos of the Bomb Squad and Public Enemy."

The product was called G-Funk, an amalgam of the past, present and future. It would come to life as soon as the team started working on The Chronic.

"As soon as we left the N.W.A situation, came 'Nuthin' But A 'G' Thang,'" explains The Chronic collaborator and songwriter Colin Wolfe.

But The Chronic would be put on hold mid-process and attention would be diverted to Snoop and Dre's other collaborative work, the soundtrack to the 1992 film Deep Cover. By then Dre and Snoop were branded as a dynamic duo and once the crew switched gears back to The Chronic, the direction would be set thanks to "… 'G' Thang."

The studio sessions were all love, where Hennessy and weed permeated the atmosphere as Dre and his tightknit team conceived his magnum opus.

"There was no grand scheme, it was everyone coming together to make really great songs and the album began to take shape on its own," remembers The Chronic songwriter The D.O.C. "The weed smoke and the energy of the crew Snoop brought around. We worked vicariously off that energy. It was the space and time where everything came together as it should have."

"The greatest part was watching the guys write and learn how to make bars," explains The Chronic mixer Chris "The Glove" Taylor. "D.O.C. would say [to the other artists], 'Write 16 lines on this legal pad and when you get to 16 lines, you're done.' Imagine a studio of cats believing they were taking over the world and doing whatever the hell they wanted to because we had Suge outside. There was an invincibility that we felt."

The songs were products of their environment. "F*** Wit Dre Day (And Everybody's Celebratin')" would bring a comedic yet venomous dis pointed at Eazy-E and his cohorts, while "Lil' Ghetto Boy" would speak to the state of Los Angeles in the midst of the riots. Other songs like "High Powered" and "Stranded On Death Row" were both menacing yet honest, reflective of the world in which Dre & Co. lived.

"We had to change some of the lyrics," Wolfe recalls, "as the tone was too intense given what was happening in L.A."

"It was too insightful at times. We were sitting [in the studio] watching the news. It was scary," Taylor adds. "Not only that but we had to change locations for the videos because of our high 'gang visibility.'"

The crew would later have to move Snoop's "Gin And Juice" video to another location (Taylor's mother's house) for that same reason.

The aforementioned "Nuthin' But A 'G' Thang" was soaked in gangster vibes yet it was the Moog synthesizer Wolfe used to create the now infamous whistling keys in the intro that would define an entire decade of West Coast rap. Together, it was a project for everyone. While N.W.A was arguably too abrasive for some listeners, Dre's solo debut struck a balance of street meets stoner, thereby broadening the album's reach.

"A lot more white folks smoke weed than are in gangs, so it was something they too could sink their teeth into and the whole world could just vibe on the same plane," says The D.O.C.

It even crossed coasts, despite the project's very identifiable West Coast sound.

"When Dre dropped that monster, you just couldn't deny it. I never saw so many people in New York banging it in their systems," says rapper Sauce Money. "I think the beauty of The Chronic was that each song carried a message that all together made up the culture of the West Coast."

Coincidentally, there was a bigger machine behind it as well. Los Angeles' KPWR-FM (Power 106) was in the early stages of bringing a hip-hop skewed format to pop radio. By the time The Chronic dropped, the station was already geared to move their evening jocks, the Baka Boyz, to daytime — marking the biggest move for hip-hop in L.A. radio history.

"I think the beauty of The Chronic was that each song carried a message that all together made up the culture of the West Coast."

"The Chronic was the flagship record for the launch of the very first hip-hop-branded pop station," says Charnas, who also hosted a segment during the Baka Boyz's "Friday Night Flavas." "It was just after that when Power 106 came up with the slogan 'Where Hip-Hop Lives' and the first album to live there was The Chronic. It was a cultural explosion."

Twenty-five years later, the ripple effect of The Chronic lives on.

From the weed rap of artists like Wiz Khalifa to the modified gangster rap of Kendrick Lamar, what Dr. Dre built with his team was a movement that would be picked apart and serve as inspiration for years to come.

In many ways, The Chronic was Dr. Dre's crowning achievement, as his later work and top albums by his peers would be lined up against it. It was lightning in a bottle, and lightning rarely strikes twice.

But like many timeless albums, it took a village — from Dre, Snoop, The D.O.C., Warren G, Nate Dogg, and Kurupt to Wolfe, Taylor and the engineers. Even Suge Knight. Everyone played a role, and the results made history.

"We loved each other enough to really focus in on making that art as best we could make it, even with all the bulls*** we were surrounded by and all the drama that was going on in the outside world," says The D.O.C. "We were all lasered in on making that album great. In my humble opinion, The Chronic is the best hip-hop album ever made."

2018 GRAMMYs: 9 Facts About The Rap Field Nominees

(Kathy Iandoli has penned pieces for Pitchfork, VICE, Maxim, O, Cosmopolitan, The Village Voice, Rolling Stone, Billboard, and more. She co-authored the book Commissary Kitchen with Mobb Deep's late Albert "Prodigy" Johnson, and is a professor of music business at select universities throughout New York and New Jersey.)

Tupac Shakur

Tupac Shakur

Photo: Raymond Boyd/Getty Images

News
For The Record: 2Pac's 'All Eyez On Me' At 25 2021-tupac-all-eyez-on-me-25th-anniversary

For The Record: The "Thug Life" Awakening Of 2Pac's 'All Eyez On Me' At 25

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As 2Pac's final album to be released during his lifetime, 'All Eyez On Me' saw the rapper embracing his "Thug Life" style and image, while also offering a sprawling look at one of rap's brightest artists ever
William E. Ketchum III
GRAMMYs
Mar 29, 2021 - 9:02 am

There are plenty of idioms about the importance of perseverance through hard times. But as 2Pac sat in a prison cell in fall 1995, he just needed an ally. He had titled his album from March of that year Me Against The World, and that was exactly how he felt. In 1994 alone, he pled guilty to a misdemeanor after being charged with assaulting an artist at a concert at Michigan State University; he was found guilty of assaulting the directors of the film Menace II Society; and he was the victim of an armed robbery at New York City's Quad Studios that left him shot five times, leaving him paranoid that his former-friend-turned-rival Notorious B.I.G.set up the shooting and jumpstarting a musical and violent beef between the East Coast and West Coast rap scenes.

In February 1995, 2Pac, born Tupac Shakur, was convicted of sexual abuse and faced a potential sentence of nearly five years. Me Against The World had become the first album to top the Billboard charts by an artist in prison. But the three-year span before All Eyez On Me, his fourth studio album and his final to drop while he was still alive, was tumultuous, a taxing era on his spirit. And he felt that despite creating art that advocated for others, he didn't have much help when he needed it.

2Pac's 'All Eyez On Me' Turns 25 | For The Record

In a nervous, harrowing interview at Rikers Island with VIBE's Kevin Powell in 1995 as the rapper awaited sentencing for the sexual abuse case, Pac recounted the Quad Studios shooting and gave insight into his trauma. "I was so scared of this responsibility that I was running away from it. But I see now that whether I show up for work or not, the evil forces are going to be at me," Pac said. " ... I've been having nightmares, thinking they're still shooting me." 

He also gave his side of the sexual abuse case, stating he didn't rape the woman in question, but admitting he didn't do much to protect her from his cohorts' sexual assault, either. He sounded reformed, denouncing the thug life persona he had adopted and assuming responsibility for his music's impact. "If you see everybody dying because of what you saying, it don't matter that you didn't make them die, it just matters that you didn't save them," Pac said in the VIBE interview. " … This Thug Life stuff, it was just ignorance. My intentions was always in the right place. I never killed anybody, I never raped anybody, I never committed no crimes that weren't honorable –– that weren't to defend myself. So that's what I'm going to show them. I'm going to show people my true intentions, and my true heart."

Creating music was the last thing on 2Pac's mind while battling his demons in prison. "I don't even got the thrill to rap no more," Pac told VIBE. "In here, I don't even remember my lyrics." But his debt in the outside world was piling up just as high as his pain while locked up inside, and his money was running low as his mother was on the verge of losing her home. 

Through his wife, Pac reportedly reached out to Suge Knight for financial help, and the Death Row Records founder delivered. He reportedly sent $15,000 to the rapper and began visiting Shakur in prison. Knight eventually struck a deal: He'd get his legal team to help with Pac's case and put up the money for his $1.4 million bail; in exchange, 2Pac would deliver three albums. Pac joined the Death Row family, alongside L.A. rap behemoths Dr. Dre and Snoop Doggy Dogg, solidifying a label roster rivaling any others rap music had ever created.

Read: For The Record: A Tribe Called Quest's Groundbreaking 'The Low End Theory' At 30

When Pac was released from prison, his repentance for Thug Life went out the window. He descended from remorse to unbridled anger: He was almost killed, he believed he was betrayed by one of his closest friends, Black civil rights leaders were speaking out against him despite his familial lineage to the Black Panther Party via his mother, Afeni Shakur, and he had spent months isolated in a prison cell for a crime he felt he didn't commit.

He also knew the big stage required dedication to a persona. "When you do rap albums, you got to train yourself," he told VIBE. "You got to constantly be in character." That's not to say Pac was putting on an act, though: Even as he contradicted himself, every word felt sincere. He showed off his iconic Thug Life tattoo on his stomach. "Yes, I did say Thug Life was dead, but when (New York's hip-hop scene) said (they didn't have information on my shooting), they breathed new life into me. Thug Life became not only a rap group, but a way of life, for life, for me," he said in another interview with VIBE. "They said I couldn't be in pain … Remember this lack of consciousness when I come out. Remember this lack of mercy when I come out. Remember this lack of compassion when I come out."

2Pac remembered, and with All Eyez On Me, he didn't let anyone else forget. He recognized his mortality and recorded at a frantic pace, creating enough original material to make one of hip-hop's first double albums, and leaving what felt like an infinite amount of records in the vault after his untimely death in 1996. (Rumors at the time circulated that Pac created a double album to speed toward his contract requirements after uneasiness arose around Suge Knight.)

He rode on his enemies across All Eyez On Me, taking on everyone who he felt turned their back on him when he needed them most. On "How Do U Want It," he spits venom at civil rights activist and politician C. Delores Tucker, who was leading the charge against rap music that year. "Instead of tryin' to help a n***a, you destroy a brother / Worse than the others; Bill Clinton, Mister Bob Dole / You're too old to understand the way the game's told," he fumes. While Pac wouldn't come after Biggie on wax by name until "Hit 'Em Up," it was clear that many of his shots weren't against the hypothetical haters that litter other rap songs. "Spitting at adversaries, envious and after me / I'd rather die before they capture me, watch me bleed," Pac says on the album opener "Ambitionz Az A Ridah."

Even the carefree fun of All Eyez On Me is tinged with jadedness. "All Bout U" has a dance-ready beat by Daz Dillinger and a melodious chorus by Nate Dogg, but Pac still distrusts women after his rape charge: "You're probably crooked as the last trick," he sneers, before he, Snoop Dogg and the Outlawz chastise women in their circle as gold-digging groupies.

The sentiment continues on songs like "Skandalouz" and "Wonda Why They Call U Bitch"; at the end of the latter, Pac speaks directly to Tucker again, stating that the song explains the misogyny in his music. He spends the first couple of verses of "2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted" celebrating his freedom with fellow indicted rapper Snoop, but by the third verse, he's refocused on protection and vengeance: "Jealousy is misery, sufferin' is greed / Better be prepared when you cowards f**k with me."

The album is two discs long, but Pac's blunt, direct style makes it fly by, like repeated shots of potent-yet-smooth scotch. His rhyme schemes weren't complex or multifaceted, but you never questioned how he felt––and his musical approach was versatile. He sounds just as much at home popping off at foes over Dre's funky synths on "Can't C Me" and seesawing with Snoop over Daz's thumping synths as he does on the temporary East Coast truce record "Got My Mind Made Up," where he and Snoop team up with Method Man and Redman over record scratches that wouldn't sound out of place in a DJ Premier set.

Dr. Dre didn't produce as much of All Eyez On Me as many would've thought when Pac signed to Death Row, but Daz Dillinger and Johnny J—with the help of DJ Quik on mixing and mastering, as reported by Pitchfork—easily hold up the sound of the album, giving it a sheen that contrasts from the dusty, unrefined tone of Pac's previous works. 

Despite the reputation of 2Pac abandoning his conscious side in favor of the Thug Life, he never strayed from his duty to speak up about the sociopolitical conditions plaguing Black people—he just switched his approach. The individual perspective may feel less direct than previous songs like "Trapped" or "Brenda's Got A Baby," but the antagonists remain the same.

On "Picture Me Rollin','' he seizes joy over a lighthearted Johnny J production despite the threats of recidivism from a racist, corrupt legal system. "They got me under surveillance / That's what somebody be tellin' / Know there's dope bein' sold, but I ain't the one sellin'," he insists. " … The federales wanna see me dead / N***as put prices on my head."

On "I Ain't Mad At Cha," he laments the deteriorating friendship with someone from his block, but he looks on proudly as his old friend embraces Islam and reforms his life after prison, even as Pac himself embraces Thug Life. In the context of the rest of the album, "I Ain't Mad At Cha'' embodies Pac at his most contradictory, compelling and tragic self: While he recognizes the conditions that push people toward street life and by showing his old friend's decision to move away from it, he dually admits he made a conscious decision to embrace the rage that sprouted from his trauma. 

That choice would cost him his life: In September 1996, he was shot and killed while leaving a boxing match, between Mike Tyson and Bruce Seldon, with Suge Knight. 2Pac was taken too soon, but All Eyez On Me still gave a sprawling, skillful image of one of rap's brightest artists ever, and an honest, fearless war cry from a man who was fighting for his life. 

N.W.A Are 'Straight Outta Compton': For The Record

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Kanye West and 50 Cent at the 2007 MTV VMAs

Photo: John Shearer/WireImage.com

Feature
Kanye West Vs. 50 Cent: 10 Years Later how-50-cent-vs-kanye-west-beef-2007-was-hard-reset-hip-hop

How The 50 Cent, Kanye West "Beef" Of 2007 Was A Hard Reset For Hip-Hop

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Relive an epic moment in music history when two heavyweight rappers battled it out for album sales supremacy and ended up putting hip-hop in the middle of the pop culture zeitgeist to stay
Kathy Iandoli
GRAMMYs
Sep 7, 2017 - 1:34 pm

Since 2001, the date Sept. 11 has been solely reflective of one pivotal moment in American history, though a decade ago music fans' attention was temporarily redirected. It was all thanks to hip-hop, as 50 Cent and Kanye West willfully entangled themselves in September 2007 in a playful beef that attracted major headlines.

Kanye West Wins Best Rap Album

Both were at turning points in their respective careers; both were dropping their all-important third albums. 50 Cent was geared to release Curtis on Sept. 11, 2007. West was readying Graduation for a Sept. 18 release, though he bumped it up a week to set the stage for what was perhaps the biggest nonviolent event in hip-hop history — as the two duked it out in a contest to see who would take home a bigger haul of album sales.

Of course, we all know the results: West's Graduation won with a staggering 957,000 units sold, while 50 Cent topped out at 691,000 units. The effects of this epic matchup, however, have reverberated to this day, as hip-hop music made a hard left and hasn't returned since.

Prior to Sept. 11, 2007, anything hip-hop related never really echoed on a grandiose scale, save for the tragic losses of Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. in 1996 and 1997, respectively. When a beef would casually surface or a rapper was rolling out a new project, it was hip-hop's little secret. Sure, communally speaking it was a big deal, but the rest of the world lacked enthusiasm despite hip-hop's growing popularity within the mainstream. The year 2007 was perhaps the tipping point for the crisis hip-hop was going through two years prior.

In 2005 50 Cent released his monumental sophomore effort, The Massacre, giving Fif a significant feather in his cap with what would be the second best-selling album of that year, trailing only Mariah Carey's The Emancipation Of Mimi. In the first week alone, The Massacre moved 1.14 million units (ultimately selling more than 5 million copies in the United States).

West was still riding high off the fumes of his 2004 debut, The College Dropout, so by that following year his sophomore work, Late Registration, gave him an impressive 860,000 sales in its first week on its way to more than 3 million copies sold.

These figures alone indicated that while 50 Cent's breed of "street rap" that nearly carried him through the early aughts was arguably still thriving, something different was brewing by necessity.

"You couldn't out-thug 50 Cent. Nothing street was gonna come next that was gonna eliminate him," explains Vanessa Satten, editor-in-chief of XXL Magazine. "That was as street as we could get."

The shift became more visible in 2006. Lupe Fiasco released his debut, Food & Liquor, and was met with rave reviews. Jay Z would poke his head out of post-"retirement" to release Kingdom Come, as the industry collectively questioned whether that was the idyllic return to form for the rapper-turned-president of Def Jam. By the close of 2006, Nas would declare "Hip Hop Is Dead" on his eighth studio album.

Entering 2007, the crumbling framework of the old guard was too blatant to deny. DJ Drama was arrested that January for selling mixtapes, a huge indicator that every aspect of rap was changing. Dr. Dre didn't release Detox, which he had been working on since 2001; Raekwon didn't release Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…Pt. II as planned — though it did drop two years later; and Eminem ducked Relapse — any combination of which would have suggested that hip-hop's current character was still somewhat in tact.

That spring, 50 Cent earned a cool $100 million as a minority owner of Vitamin Water through Glacéau's $4.1 billion sale to Coca-Cola. By the time the feud with West rolled around, it wasn't money that motivated him; it was principle. But he was too late.

"My theory is we were coming up on a time period where the internet started taking over," Satten says. "The Kanye success and moving away from the streets came with the internet, giving the nerdy person who was obsessed with fashion — which wasn't the cool person back then — the opportunity to have a voice."

"I feel like fashion was pushing it," adds Kris Ex, writer and co-author of 50 Cent's 2005 memoir, From Pieces To Weight. "The ascension into super high fashion was already happening, and Kanye tapped into that. He's kind of the harbinger of that."

Kanye West and 50 Cent at the 2007 MTV VMAs

Kanye West and 50 Cent at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards on Sept. 9, 2007
Photo: Jason Squires/WireImage.com 

Ye's July 2007 release of "Stronger" with Daft Punk only punctuates that claim. The single veered away from traditional hip-hop, accented with visuals that further reflected West's infatuation with Japanese art, particularly that of Takashi Murakami (the Japanese artist behind the Graduation cover art) as well as high fashion. It was synesthesia at its best.

"I remember sitting in Joe Levy's office when the publicist came by and played us ['Stronger']," recalls former Rolling Stone Associate Editor Evan Serpick. "We just looked at each other like, 'This s*** is phenomenal.'"

Serpick penned the piece breaking the story on the Curtis/Graduation competition — having interviewed both artists — a week before Rolling Stone would roll out its double cover story pitting Ye and Fif face-to-face. He describes the genesis of the phenomenon as fascinating.

"[The competition] reminded me of when boxers have sort of that fake press conference and talk trash for the cameras," Serpick says. "To varying degrees, I think they both saw it as a marketing opportunity, to be honest. I think Kanye especially likes to think of himself as this center of the universe. For him, this was just a classic heavyweight battle, and he loved to set it up that way. 50 was happy to play it up."

Both Kanye West and 50 Cent were at a crossroads, where their beginnings were nearly parallel in a bizarro sense. Each artist was known for his enormous personality, stemming from surviving near-fatal traumas that would ultimately self-crown them as Teflon: 50 Cent's was shot nine times in 2000 and West survived a serious car accident of 2002.

Both were archetypes of candor in their own minds, making them both caricatures.

However, in the money game, only one would be the victor, and it all came down to safety. Sure West didn't hold back his opinions, evidenced by his bold "George Bush doesn't care about black people" declaration during a nationally televised telethon for Hurricane Katrina relief in 2005. 50 Cent, though, had a bark with a bite to match. His rift with G-Unit ex-pat The Game grew nefarious, as did the violence stemming from his beef with Ja Rule. While both 50 Cent and West were tantrum-prone, only one was a real liability.

"The labels were aware of that," Kris Ex adds. "You always knew 50 was smart and had tricks up his sleeve, but it was starting to become a Def Jam Vs. Interscope battle. 50 wasn't in the best place with Interscope at that point. It was not something that he was ever going to win from jump, because he was going machine after machine."

Kris Ex also points to Def Jam's history of making first-week sales a win when they needed to. Jay Z's historical issues with 50 Cent were another factor, plus Hova was wrapping his tenure as Def Jam president, so a West win would be the swan song.

"Jay was the battery in Kanye's back," Satten says.

Sonically, Kanye was in tune with hip-hop's changes, while 50 Cent was only partially invested. In addition to "Stronger," the pre-Graduation first single "Can't Tell Me Nothing" showed Ye diverting from his chipmunk-tinged soul samples and looking toward the future. Meanwhile, the pre-Curtis offerings of "I Get Money" and "Ayo Technology" with Justin Timberlake didn't exactly scream evolution.

Graduation

"50 was kind of just sticking to his guns," adds Kris Ex.

Curtis

The 50 Cent-Kanye West matchup's stakes were raised substantially when the former claimed he would stop rapping upon defeat. The competition became lighthearted to the point of almost cartoonish, the aforementioned Rolling Stone cover being proof of that. The two would flank each other onstage at BET's "106 & Park," giving the public what they wanted: nonthreatening rap personas vying for audience participation. By Sept. 11, 2007, it was clear who the real winner was: it was both of them.

Kanye West and 50 Cent

Kanye West and 50 Cent appear on BET's "106 & Park" on Sept. 11, 2007
Photo: Brad Barket/Getty Images

"Kanye put his money where his mouth was, but at the end of the day it was good for both albums," says DJ Premier, who collaborated with West on the Graduation track "Everything I Am."

While the following week's sales figures proved West quantifiably won, 50 Cent was able to pivot from the "scary" street persona that made him a figure of consternation. Still, it solidified rap's new direction and placed it directly in the hands of Yeezy.

"The impact was tenfold because ever since that day, hip-hop has moved in the direction of Kanye," says Sickamore, senior vice president and creative director of Interscope Records. "Kanye literally influenced everything after that. I don't think people really realize that."

By the milestone 50th GRAMMY Awards telecast, the change was set in stone. Graduation was nominated for Album Of the Year (ultimately losing to Herbie Hancock's River: The Joni Letters) and took home Best Rap Album honors. "Stronger" would win Best Rap Solo Performance, topping 50 Cent's "I Get Money" and even Jay Z's "Show Me What You Got." "Good Life" won Best Rap Song, beating himself ("Can't Tell Me Nothing" was also nominated) and 50 Cent's "Ayo Technology" in the process. West also won best Rap Performance By A Duo Or Group for the track "Southside" with Common.

GRAMMY scoreboard: West 4, Fifty Cent 0.

"A lot of people said hip-hop was dead, not just Nas. A lot of people just said the art form wasn't popping like that anymore. I wanted to cross the genres and show people how we can still express ourselves with something fresh and new. That's what hip-hop has always been about." — Kanye West, Best Rap Album GRAMMY acceptance

Many have argued that West's wins were the sole identifier in rap's switch being flipped, though the warning signs were there. A year later we would be introduced to Kid Cudi, and Drake a year after that — arguably the purveyors of what Kris Ex calls the "Kanye-lite" sound. Though he won his own GRAMMY two years later, 50 Cent would never return to reclaim the rap throne, though his business portfolio — including his recent win as an actor and producer for the hit Starz series Power — could easily be a delayed right hook to West's ego.

One thing remains certain: Hip-hop became the zeitgeist of pop culture after this fateful feud, and nothing has been "Stronger" since.

(Kathy Iandoli has penned pieces for Pitchfork, VICE, Maxim, O, Cosmopolitan, The Village Voice, Rolling Stone, Billboard, and more. She co-authored the book Commissary Kitchen with Mobb Deep's late Albert "Prodigy" Johnson, and is a professor of music business at select universities throughout New York and New Jersey.)

Kanye West, 50 Cent Common, T.I.: What's Your Favorite 2007 Hip-Hop Album?

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Dr. Dre

Photo: Al Pereira/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

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Dr. Dre's 'The Chronic' | For The Record dr-dres-chronic-record

Dr. Dre's 'The Chronic' | For The Record

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Roll back to 1992 and revisit the legendary debut solo album that has served as a blueprint for West Coast rap
Ana Monroy Yglesias
GRAMMYs
Sep 14, 2018 - 5:56 pm

In 1991 Dr. Dre helped form Death Row Records, shortly after the disbanding of N.W.A., the rap group that launched him into music stardom. A year later he released his debut solo album, The Chronic. With the influential album came an innovative mix of the Funkadelic sound, G-funk and rap, the introduction of Snoop Dogg, and an era-defining blueprint for West Coast rap.

Dr. Dre's 'The Chronic': For The Record

The GRAMMY-winning rapper/producer extraordinaire, then just 27, released The Chronic on December 15, 1992 via his newly-formed record label, with distribution through Interscope Records. While Dre has had an incredibly impactful career in music and business, and both directly and indirectly influenced many other successful hip-hop artists, he has only released three studio albums of his own.Following The Chronic, his much-anticipated follow-up wasn't released until 1999 – 2001 (sometimes referred to as The Chronic 2001), now another classic. In the documentary The Defiant Ones, he cites his perfectionism as a major factor in holding up 2001, and in putting out more solo releases.

The Chronic brought us several classic hip-hop tracks and won Dre his first GRAMMY. The album's third single "Let Me Ride" won Best Rap Solo Performance, and the first single "Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang" was nominated for Best Rap Performance By A Duo or Group at the 36th GRAMMY Awards. A then-unknown 20 year-old Snoop Doggy Dogg rapped on many of the tracks, receiving his first GRAMMY nomination for his feature on "Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang," and launching his solo career shortly after.

Snoop, introduced to Dre through his stepbrother Warren G, brought the laid-back 420-vibes that infused the album. Their collaboration, along with the others who worked on the album, including Warren G and Nate Dogg, created a classic sound that would define West Coast rap for the years to come. Dre's message was still from the California "gangsta" perspective, but with a slower flow and somewhat more laid-back vibe, producing a ground-breaking sound and a growing fan base. 

"I think the beauty of The Chronic was that each song carried a message that all together made up the culture of the West Coast," said rapper Sauce Money.

Many hip-hop artists – Kanye West included – and fans point to the album as one of the most influential hip-hop albums of all time.

"It's the benchmark you measure your album against if you're serious," West wrote in 2010 for Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Artists list, which covered all genres and ranked Dre at No. 56.

Recognizing its immense influence, The Chronic was inducted into the GRAMMY Hall of Fame in 2018, an honor limited to "recording[s] of lasting qualitative or historical significance."

Lil Wayne photographed in 2008

Lil Wayne

Photo: Jamie McCarthy/WireImage.com

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10 Years Later: Lil Wayne's 'Tha Carter III' lollipop-milli-lil-waynes-tha-carter-iii-10-years-after

"Lollipop" To "A Milli": Lil Wayne's 'Tha Carter III' 10 Years After

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Look back at how Weezy's sixth studio "event" changed the game and inadvertently became his magnum opus
Kathy Iandoli
GRAMMYs
Jun 6, 2018 - 3:13 pm

Few hip-hop albums are referred to as an "event" rather than a "release." However, on June 10, 2008, Lil Wayne created an event with the third installment of his Carter album series, the aptly titled Tha Carter III.

Lil Wayne Wins Best Rap Album

Before delving into this project, it's important to reflect upon two years prior. At the close of 2005, Wayne dropped Tha Carter II, an album that true Weezy aficionados regard as one of his most potent works, though the buck stops there. By the time the calendar turned to 2006, Wayne's fifth album flew under the mainstream rap radar, as other projects from budding acts took precedent, including the Game's Doctor's Advocate, Rick Ross' Port Of Miami, T.I.'s King, Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor, and Nas' declaration heard 'round the world, Hip Hop Is Dead.

"I feel like in 2006, every great artist — save for Eminem and Dr. Dre who were in hiding at the time — made their album," recalls Ambrosia for Heads Editor-In-Chief Jake Paine.

Meanwhile, Wayne dropped Like Father, Like Son, a 2006 collaboration with Birdman, an album described as a cult classic by Complex. In the two-year period between Tha Carter II and Tha Carter III, Wayne was seemingly everywhere.

"Here's Wayne bulldozing through songs — being featured on songs every other week, more song leaks, mixtapes — there was a flood of Wayne music coming out," says Yoh Phillips, DJBooth senior writer. "If you were tuned in, it was a very exciting time because every week there was new music and every song was better than the last."

This period of ambiguity ultimately created what Jay-Z referred to as "Mixtape Weezy," an artist who saw commercial success yet voluntarily spelunked into the underbelly of rap's mixtape scene. Mean and full of lean, Wayne did the opposite of what most rappers did during that period, which was go into hiding into his next major release.

"He was at the top of his game," recalls Young Money/Cash Money Records' Senior Vice President Katina Bynum, who was VP of Marketing at the time. "Every verse he was dropping was different and next level. Just by him being on a song could save a career or break a new artist."

Anticipation was certainly reaching a boiling point for Tha Carter III based on these chess moves.

"He teased us with all of these incredible blows and wordplay and punchlines, so he had to wow us with his next album," Yoh expresses. "I don't think a rapper has done that well of a balance as Lil Wayne during that time. It all helped build the anticipation of what this album was going to sound like."

Then it happened — at a time when summer releases could get lost in the proverbial shuffle — Tha Carter III was unleashed June 10. Before the week's end, projections reported it was already bound for a cool milli in sales.

"I think Nielsen reported the million first week projections very quickly and that was the currency of rap thanks to 50 Cent," Paine explains. "Wayne was completely legitimized in that moment."

The album skyrocketed to No. 1, indeed pushing more than 1 million units in the first week alone — at that time marking the first artist to do so since 50 Cent in 2005. To date, it's certified triple platinum.

At 16 tracks deep, Tha Carter III is lengthy, yet packs enough diversity to solidify any listener as a Lil Wayne fan. Commercial releases like "Lollipop" gave Weezy his most successful single to date, while "A Milli" showcased his unwavering lyrical skill.

"When I heard 'Lollipop' I knew he had created a new lane," adds Bynum. "There was nothing that sounded like it on radio or anywhere else."

"Mrs. Officer" fed the ladies (despite being one of many arguably misogynistic songs on the project), and "Mr. Carter" was an unlikely win due to its collaborators, since no one expected Wayne and Jay to show up together. Then there are songs for the mixtape heroes like "Dr. Carter," where Swizz Beatz lays a boom-bap foundation for Wayne to lay on (rumor has it the beat was originally for Jay-Z).

"It's a David Axelrod loop, and was such a satisfying moment to hear Wayne rap over a DITC-sounding beat and just kill it," Paine says.

Other songs like "Tie My Hands" bring a politically charged Wayne with lines such as "Born right here in the USA/But due to tragedy, looked on by the whole world as a refugee."

Lil Wayne and T-Pain perform at the 2008 BET Awards
Lil Wayne: 10th Anniversary Of 'Tha Carter III'

Of course, what's a Wayne album without braggadocio and loose gang ties? "He's still set trippin', he's still making threats to anonymous adversaries, feeling his own fame," Paine says.

And while it's frequently slept-on beyond live performances, "Phone Home" anchored Wayne's trademark as extraterrestrial. "[Wayne] did an unbelievable freestyle over Jay-Z's 'Show Me What You Got' from [2006's Kingdom Come]" explains Dre of Cool & Dre, who produced "Phone Home." "On it he says, 'We are not the same. I am a martian,' and it always stuck out to me.

"Me and Cool were in the studio and wanted to flip that line. but make a beat that sounds out of this world. We had the whole sound effects, we were beaming him down to Earth. I laid down the hook, 'Phone home, Weezy! Phone home!'"

At the time, Wayne was recording at New York's Hit Factory, and it only took a short while for the hit to be made.

"A few hours later Wayne called him to come down to the studio," Dre continues. "He goes, 'I went to the boogeyman in the closet, Dre. And I came out with this.' We were blown away, and he even kept me on the hook." Per Dre, the heavy use of rock elements on the song led to the concept for Wayne's 2010 Rebirth album.

Strategic collaborations came with the aforementioned Jay-Z, but also T-Pain on "Got Money" (a precursor to the 2017 T-Wayne mixtape) and production from Kanye West, David Banner, Alchemist, and more. While Tha Carter III traveled in many directions, the undeniable focus of Wayne was evident on the work; though its success was also hinged to his omnipresence at the time.

The result was his most commercially received project. He won Best Rap Album, Best Rap Song for "Lollipop" and Best Rap Solo Performance for "A Milli" at the 51st GRAMMY Awards, in addition to scoring a nomination for Album Of The Year.

"We still can't get over not winning Album Of The Year at the GRAMMYs that year," Dre says with a laugh.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BihhLkwjg9z/?taken-by=liltunechi

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Tha Carter III's impact remains a huge footnote in the history of Weezy F. Baby. So much so that Wayne's Weezyana Fest this year will be dedicated solely to the milestone anniversary of the album, a further testament to its "event" status.

At the end of "Dr. Carter," Wayne smugly declares, "Welcome back, hip-hop, I saved your life," an obvious response to Nas' death claim from two years prior. While it's a large badge to place upon his chest, Wayne did save hip-hop in a sense. From itself.

"Wayne completely changed the game," Bynum says. "He's an original, a classic and there will be no one like him ... period."

(Kathy Iandoli has penned pieces for Pitchfork, VICE, Maxim, O, Cosmopolitan, The Village Voice, Rolling Stone, Billboard, and more. She co-authored the book Commissary Kitchen with Mobb Deep's late Albert "Prodigy" Johnson, and is a professor of music business at select universities throughout New York and New Jersey.)

How The 50 Cent, Kanye West "Beef" Of 2007 Was A Hard Reset For Hip-Hop

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