became notorious for their hardcore lyrics, especially those of "Fuck tha Police," which resulted in the FBI sending a warning letter to Ruthless and its parent company, Priority, suggesting that N.W.A. delivered Straight Outta Compton, a vicious hardcore record that became an underground hit with virtually no support from radio, the press, or MTV. an acronym for Niggaz With Attitude - with Dre and Cube, releasing their first album in 1987. When the group refused, Eazy formed N.W.A. Eazy tried to give one of the duo's songs, "Boyz-n-the Hood," to HBO, a group signed to Ruthless. In 1986 he met Ice Cube, and the two rappers began writing songs for Ruthless Records, a label started by former drug pusher Eazy-E. Dre, a company that introduced the celebrity headphones phenomenon, later morphed into a streaming music service, and was then bought by Apple Inc.ĭre (born Andre Young, February 18, 1965) became involved in hip-hop during the early '80s, performing at house parties and clubs with the World Class Wreckin' Cru around South Central Los Angeles and making a handful of recordings along the way. Dre retaliated by forming a new company, Aftermath, and while it was initially slow getting started, his bold moves forward earned critical respect. For nearly four years, G-funk dominated hip-hop, and Dre had enough sense to abandon it and Death Row just before the whole empire collapsed in late 1996. Soon, most rap records imitated its sound, and his productions for Snoop Doggy Dogg and Blackstreet were massive hits. in 1992, he founded Death Row Records with Suge Knight, and the label quickly became the dominant force in mid-'90s hip-hop thanks to his debut, The Chronic. On his own, he reworked George Clinton's elastic funk into the self-styled G-funk, a slow-rolling variation that relied more on sound than content. he melded the noise collages of the Bomb Squad with funky rhythms. Dre was never much of a rapper - his rhymes were simple and his delivery was slow and clumsy - but as a producer, he was extraordinary. celebrated the hedonistic, amoral side of gang life. BDP's early albums were hardcore but cautionary tales of the criminal mind, but Dre's records with N.W.A. Instead, Dre pioneered gangsta rap and his own variation of the sound, G-funk. Dre was responsible for moving away from the avant-noise and political stance of Public Enemy and Boogie Down Productions as well as the party vibes of old-school rap.