The Spin Doctor
Brendan Koerner over at Slate provides an insightful analysis of why super-rap producer, Dr. Dre (nee Andre Young) continues to be one of the best in the music industry. Among the things that Koerner thinks deserve credit are Dre's creative or "aesthetic genius", his deep knowledge of the industry and its players (especially their over-sized egos) and his "innate grasp of two core business principles: quality control and the law of supply and demand. "
Take Dre's notorious perfectionism: He'll record literally hundreds of tracks for a single album, 95 percent of which end up in the trash. He could make a quick buck by releasing, say, several albums worth of 50 Cent outtakes, but he has wisely resisted the urge to dilute the Dre brand. Contrast that attitude with what Master P did at No Limit Records in the late 1990s when he released album after album by talent-free family members. Master P's name became synonymous with craven profiteering; Dre's quality control has preserved his reputation for churning out worthwhile material.
While Dre's attention to "quality control and the law of supply and demand" are commendable, I'm hard pressed to think it is completely "innate." To be sure, in new fields of endeavor, an innate or natural understanding helps in obtaining and securing an early advantage.
Over time, however, new entrants join the fray, incumbents learn, and the level of competition rises to such a degree that more than natural endowments and gifts are required to sustain the early advantage or gain one if you don't have it. At some point natural abilities become "table stakes", the minimun required to get into competitive arena, while experience and domain-specific skills make more of a difference.
My guess is that Dre's success is partially attributable to innate ability, ability that manifested itself early on in a string of highly successful but relatively unpolished hits. That early success has, in turn, been sustained for over 15 years by learning and by bitter experience, by observing the rise and fall of the careers of countless rappers, proteges, and producers and by seeing not just a few of them kill, be accused of killing, or be killed.
As such, Dre's probably got a very sophisticated understanding of the industry structure and dynamics and can apply that to important business decisions like knowing who to work with and not and when to work with them and not. And that's a very different thing from "innate ability."
And while I think Dr. Dre and his former NWA bandmates deserve a lot of the blame for hip hop's self-destructive ganster ethos and misogynistic tendencies, credit must go where credit is due: the doctor's not just a natural, he's been learning on the job and he gets paid handsomely to operate. That having been said, if hip hop had the equivalent of the Hippocratic oath, this doctor would likely have been sued for malpractice, lost his license, and put behind bars.
See also: Mongolian Hip Hop (and it don't stop)
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Further Reading: ProHipHop
Comments
It is unfortunate how most rappers today have lost the pure rap theme, artists like 50 cent and lil john made it more of a business than music.
Posted by: Fahad AL-Nafisi | May 3, 2006 8:35 PM
he is the bomb man he still coool
Posted by: Anonymous | May 3, 2006 8:05 PM