Construction is expected to begin by 2020.ĭre’s donation to the new Compton High School comes a few years after he promised to donate all the royalties from his last album, Compton, to fund new performing arts and entertainment facility in the city. Dre will also lead a fundraising effort to acquire the rest of the money needed to complete the center. “The performing arts center will be a place for young people to be creative in a way that will help further their education and positively define their future.”ĭr. Compton is an internist in Saint Louis, Missouri and is affiliated with multiple hospitals in the area, including SSM Health St. “My goal is to provide kids with the kind of tools and learning they deserve,” Dr. It will feature state-of-the-art equipment and facilities for digital media production, as well as a 1,200-seat theater. Dre gave $10 million to help build a performing arts center at the new Compton High School in his hometown neighborhood of Compton, Los Angeles. Compton High School students and members of the community will have access to the performing arts center. But it’s hard to deny ‘Compton’ is brilliantly constructed, a masterclass in 21st century hip-hop. In this regard at least, Dre won’t be missed. Likewise, Eminem’s cameo on ‘Medicine Man’ is technically superb, but the content – “ I even make the bitches I rape come”, and so on – somehow comes over both hateful and boring. On ‘Loose Cannons’, a woman pleads for her life before being shot dead and buried in a shallow grave by the rapper Cold 187um nastier things have happened in the history of hip-hop lyricism, but something about the absence of context, the flatness of delivery, makes this feel particularly depressing.

Tracks like ‘Fuck Tha Police’ were phrased as a response to racist police brutality, but Dre’s music has seldom tried to struggle towards any moral high ground broadly, the message is succeed, and fuck all y’all. If we’re considering legacy, though, ‘Compton’ reminds you of the unwelcome aspects NWA brought to the game. Paak, who appears on six of these 16 tracks) means Dre looks like a man with an enviable phone book, but still with his ear to the streets. But the line-up, mixing A-listers (Kendrick Lamar, Eminem, The Game, Snoop Dogg) with talented newcomers (such as the aforementioned Mez, or R&B singer Anderson. For one, Dre is not hip-hop’s greatest wordsmith – famously, he’s employed ghostwriters to pen rhymes, and his skill on the mic remains gruffly able, rather than flamboyant or particularly rich in craft. ‘Compton’ is guest-packed, a wise choice for several reasons. (That Eazy made it through the pearly gates might surprise some, but amidst all this gritty reality, the odd swerve into fantasy is quite appealing). The wistful ‘Darkside/Gone’ – which features fellow Comptonite Kendrick Lamar – even finds Dre dropping a sample of Eazy E’s voice to give the impression his late NWA bandmate is looking down on him from heaven. Early stand-out ‘It’s All On Me’ draws on satin-smooth soul to reminisce upon his youth, from recording beats to a four-track to beatings from police billy-clubs. Opener ‘Talk About It’ finds Dre retelling his story, from hood hustler to company CEO – his first line, following a deft verse from new protégé King Mez, is a boomed “ I just bought California!” – while giving the first indication of how his slinky G-funk productions have opened up to acknowledge newer rap styles such as drill and trap. A long cinematic pan across Los Angeles, the city that spawned him, it’s about as reflective as a record can sound when its maker appears to consider himself infallible. The 50-year-old says ‘Compton’ is his swansong, and you certainly get the sense of a tale concluding. That ‘Compton’ appears now, you sense, isn’t so much down to an artistic epiphany as a way of triangulating business interests and getting cash registers ringing.īut there’s the question of a legacy, too. Then there’s Straight Outta Compton, a Hollywood telling of the story of Dre’s ’80s gangsta group NWA with the good Dr and former bandmate Ice Cube in the producer’s chair. Following a $3 billion handshake, Beats is now part of the Apple Music empire, with Dre along for the ride. Those albums – the long-promised ‘Detox’ and an instrumental album, ‘The Planets’ – have failed to materialise, but in 2015, there is more important work to attend to. For 16 years, the rap mogul has largely conducted his affairs off-mic, building beats for Kendrick Lamar and protégé Eminem, refining his high-end headphones brand Beats By Dre, and all the while teasing a couple of follow-ups to 1999’s still-got-it gangsta epic ‘2001’. Let nobody accuse Dr Dre of not having an eye for a marketing opportunity.

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