(Side note: this is like 95% of the reason why I refuse to like it now, and why I'm so bitter that suddenly it became "cool" to listen to it. Really? I get ripped on relentlessly for knowing all the words to "John Deere Green", and now 5 years later you're shelling out triple figures to sit 8th row at the Garth Brooks concert? Blow me. My bitterness reached an all-time high at WeFest 2004, when, in protest of country music, I stole 17 cowboy hats, punched a girl wearing a Shania Twain shirt, tried to light the stage on fire, and finally broke down in tears as George Strait performed his second encore.)
Sure, I was aware of pop music, and I listened to the Top 5 countdown on Magic 96 or XL93 every night, but every CD I owned up until age 12 was either country, Tag Team, Kris Kross, or the previously discussed MC Hammer.
....Until that fateful day in 6th grade when I was flipping through my mom's Columbia House magazine and saw a CD called The Chronic. I had no idea who Dr. Dre really was besides his name, or what the word chronic meant, but it looked cool, and I immediately placed the checkmark in the box to order one. Weeks later, when the package arrived, I made sure to grab it out of the mailbox first so that my mom wouldn't see the dreaded parental advisory sticker and confiscate it (my parents were notoriously strict back then, and they would've taken one look at the giant marijuana leaf that covered the entire disc and thrown that CD in the garbage. If, you know, they hadn't already noticed some of the song titles on the back: "Fuck Wit Dre Day", "Bitches Ain't Shit", "A Nigga Witta Gun" and "Deeez Nuuuuts" come to mind.)
And by the time I had finished the third song on the disc ("Let Me Ride"- to this day my favorite rap song of all time) I was hooked. One day, I was humming tunes about pickup trucks, drinking whiskey, and standing outside the fire; the next, I was bumping my head to songs about 64 Impalas, drinking 40's, and setting buildings on fire. I was now reciting lines that I enjoyed, despite the fact that I had NO IDEA what they meant (such as "droppin' chronic plates on your ass" or "I got the hollow points for the snitches.") My love of gangsta rap was born.
Listening to Dre lead me to Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, 2Pac, and others. When the East Coast/West Coast rap war heated up, I was right there too, refusing to listen to Notorious B.I.G., Nas, or Jay-Z since they were from New York. It was like a mix of hip-hop and professional wrestling, a combination which is the definition of awesome in the mind of a 7th grader. After a couple years, I kinda quit discriminating: partly because it was dumb after awhile (like wrestling!) partly because I realized that Wu-Tang was from New York and they were awesome, and partly because I woke up and realized that Death Row Records probably didn't care too much that a 14-year-old from North Dakota was "on their side."
Despite the fact that I could probably name 10 rappers whose lyrics I enjoy more than Dr. Dre's, he has to be on the top of this list because his fingerprints are all over the genre. As a member of N.W.A. in the late 1980s, he helped invent gangsta rap. When he went out on his own, his G-Funk style of beats and synthesizer revolutionized rap and took it into the 21st century. He's one of the greatest producers of all time- in any type of music, not just rap. He was either solely or partly responsible for bringing us Snoop Dogg, 2Pac, Eminem, and 50 Cent, 4 of the greatest rappers in history. It's not a coincidence that soon after Dre left Death Row, the company fell apart and the heyday of rap music ended.
Although rap music these days sucks - you'd be more likely to find me listening to the new Britney Spears CD than the new Lil' Wayne CD- The Chronic is still one of my favorite albums of all time. Without Dr. Dre, gangsta rap would never have reached the heights that it did, and it's not too much of a stretch to say that it might not have existed at all. For that he gets my #1 spot.
And if I was making a list of coolest pictures ever, this might be #1 too.
Editor's update: additional picture, as requested:
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