Wreckin'

In anticipation of Dr. Dre's highly anticipated performance @ tonight's Grammy's & the supposedly forthcoming Detox, a 12-yr. in the making follow-up to his 2 highly influential gangsta-rap solos of the 1990s (1992's The Chronic & 1999's 2001), here's a bit of forgotten history.  Leading up to and briefly overlapping with the birth of N.W.A. Dre was the resident DJ for the World Class Wreckin' Cru.  Today we equate rap & particularly Dre with the violently sexist, homophobic thug mentality, but the true roots of the genre were in the disco//house club scene, an ecstatic queer explosion of fashion, music, and dance.

 

UPDATE (3/19/2011) :

While the performance itself left much to be desired, this video for the lead single from the new album is self-mythology done right.  Eschewing the distracting sci-fi window dressing & the fact that, actually, the doctor has far from disappeared for the last ten years, it makes clear how deep and complex the idea of "brotherhood" runs in the hip-hop community.