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Since we covered Ice Cube's early C.I.A. days last week, I thought this would be a good time to put up some of Dr. Dre's early work. Before he hooked up with Cube on the C.I.A. project and before his days as a hardened N.W.A., Dre was part of an electro group, the World Class Wrecking Cru.
The Wrecking Cru was formed in 1986 by Lonzo Williams, a club owner from Compton. Lonzo brought in Dre and Yella, who were both DJing house parties at the time, and rapper Cli-N-Tel. A few other rappers would come and go during the group's existence, but Dre remained the centerpiece, doing all of the production work for the group. The Wrecking Cru eventually found some success in 1988 when their single "Turn Off The Lights" made it onto the R&B Top 40 Charts, but by that time Yella and Dre had become involved with another group, N.W.A. Dre and Yella left the Wrecking Cru to focus on Straight Outta Compton and the next Wrecking Cru release, in 1990, featured only Lonzo Williams. Several years later, Lonzo would release another album under the name World Class Wrecking Krew.
Listening to the early Wrecking Cru tracks, there's very little of the signature Dr. Dre sound that we've all come to expect from him. The beats are fairly simplistic, featuring some very basic electronic drum patterns and a few synth notes scattered around the track, and its hard to describe the songs as anything other than corny. More interesting than the music that the group put out is the image that they created for themselves. As you can see in the picture above, they looked like a hip hop version of a glam rock band. Along with the sequins, the members of the group weren't shy about putting on makeup. This wasn't all that surprising for an early 80's group, but tight white leather pants and eyeliner aren't what you'd expect from a gangsta rapper. Remember that the next time you listen to Dre rap about 187s.
Not surprisingly, once Dr. Dre made the switch over to hardcore gangsta rapper, his electro days came back to haunt him. After his falling out with Eazy E, Eazy put out the track 187um Killa referencing Dre's glam days with the line, "Man its a bitch how a nigga can switch so quick from wearing lipstick to smokin' on chronic at picnics." Luther Campbell also went at Dre for his questionable past in the video for Cowards in Compton, showing a Dre look alike wearing a sequin outfit and putting on mascara (watch the video here -- fast forward to 2:30).
Here is one of the tracks from the Wrecking Cru:
He's Bionic (Dre drops the first verse)
9/18/2006 10:46:35 AM posted by Fresh