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with the masses. Whereas East Coast acts such as Public Enemy and Boogie Down Productions relied on a dense, pounding musical backdrop, Dr. Dre melded his noise collages to a deep, rolling funk. Dr. Dre’s earlier work, on tracks such as “Express Yourself,” from N.W.A’s landmark Straight Outta Compton, followed producer Eric B.’s (of Eric B. and Rakim) style of mining James Brown for a new generation, yet to an altogether different end. Dr. Dre and his associates in N.W.A—Ice Cube, Eazy-E, MC Ren, and DJ Yella—upped the ante on scaring the system. Chuck D had called for revolution and had criticized society, but N.W.A stood for chaos. Without reflection or talk of consequence, their songs celebrated the harassment of women, drunk driving, drug selling, and shoot-outs with cops and rivals. In 1988, Straight Outta Compton, largely driven by the megaphoneblast shock value of the single “Fuck Tha Police,” went platinum with absolutely no major radio airplay or support from MTV. The FBI deemed the group’s image as threatening as terrorism: As sales of Straight Outta Compton added up, N.W.A’s record company, Ruthless, and their parent company, Priority Records, were sent letters from the Bureau that warned that the group should tone down their act. At the same time, N.W.A’s runaway sales perked the ears of corporate music executives who would soon craft stars in their image, as the group launched a legacy that defined popular rap music into the next century. It was a sign of things to come, and a reminder to any who hadn’t noticed, that an excess of sex, violence, and money in entertainment connects with Americans.

When Dr. Dre formed Death Row Records with notorious executive Suge Knight in 1992, the West Coast “G-Funk” style became an empire. Death Row artists such as Snoop Dogg and Tupac Shakur dominated the hip-hop and pop charts in the early and midnineties with the hedonistic, romanticized nihilism of gang life, drug dealing, misogyny, and murder. Images of West Coast house parties, vintage low-rider cars, and gang-banging “homeboys” who ruled the neighborhood from the comfort of their mom’s house flooded MTV, at which point it was absorbed by teens in suburbs all over the country. White kids in the Midwest and elsewhere connected with the rebellion even if they didn’t understand its roots, musically or socially. What they did was imitate its style and dance to its groove immediately. Across the country, suburban teens of all races, and a greater majority of young whites than ever, relished the music’s tantalizing danger; they soon dressed, spoke, and attempted to party like gang members from Compton, California. Hollywood reflected the gangsta takeover, too, sending up films that depicted the treacherous reality of West Coast ghetto life, such as Boyz ’N the Hood (1991) and Menace II Society (1993), as well as those that made light of it, such as Friday (1995), the weed-fogged comedy starring Ice Cube, and the ghetto-themed horror movie Tales from the Hood (1995). As the decade tipped toward its second half, “thug life,” like the motto tattooed across Tupac Shakur’s torso, became an institution, a vision of living above the law without consequences; a vision shattered when art spilled into reality and the nineties’ two brightest stars, Tupac Shakur and Christopher Wallace (a.k.a. the Notorious B.I.G.), were gunned down in separate incidents that remain unsolved mysteries. But gangsta rap, as it is most commonly known, began with Dr. Dre, who drove mainstream hip-hop—some say for the worse, some say for the best—into lewd, visceral territory: a cross between the insane reality comedy of Richard Pryor and the violent decadence of Brian De Palma’s Scarface.

The Chicago Sun-Times writer Jim DeRogatis regards Dr. Dre as responsible for a decade of mediocre rap that has stifled the art form. “I think Dre is perhaps the most overrated producer in rock history,” he says. “I don’t think that musically Dre has ever been the genius people say he is. I think it’s bubblegum—big, stupid, dumb, simple hooks. And that’s okay, but I listen