50 facts you didn’t know about Dr. Dre

Dr. Dre's full name is Andre Romelle Young. Learn other 49 things about Dr. Dre.

1. Andre Romelle Young, known by his stage name Dr. Dre, is an American record producer, rapper and entrepreneur.

2. Dr. Dre is the founder and current CEO of Aftermath Entertainment and Beats Electronics.

3. Dr. Dre was previously the co-owner of, and an artist on, Death Row Records.

4. Dr. Dre has produced albums for and overseen the careers of many rappers, including Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Xzibit, 50 Cent, The Game, and Kendrick Lamar.

5. Dr. Dre is credited as a key figure in the popularization of West Coast G-funk, a style of rap music characterized as synthesizer-based with slow, heavy beats.

6. In 2014, Dr. Dre was ranked as the second richest figure in the American hip hop scene by Forbes with a net worth of $550 million; he is at the top of the 2015 Forbes list, with an estimated pre-tax take of $620 million in 2014.

7. His 1992 solo debut The Chronic, released under Death Row Records, led him to become one of the best-selling American performing artists of 1993 and to win a Grammy Award for the single "Let Me Ride".

8. Dr. Dre produced Death Row labelmate Snoop Dogg's quadruple platinum debut Doggystyle.

9. In 1996, he left Death Row Records to establish his own label, Aftermath Entertainment.

10. Dr. Dre produced a compilation album titled Dr. Dre Presents the Aftermath in 1996, and released a solo album titled 2001 in 1999.

11. During the 2000s, he focused on production for other artists, while occasionally contributing vocals to songs.

12. Dr. Dre signed Eminem and 50 Cent to his record label in 1998 and 2002 respectively, while contributing production on their albums.

13. Dr. Dre has won six Grammy Awards, including Producer of the Year.

14. Dr. Dre has also had acting roles in movies such as Set It Off, The Wash and Training Day.

15. Rolling Stone ranked Dre at 56 on their list of "100 Greatest Artists of All-Time".

16. Dr. Dre was born in Compton, California on February 18, 1965.

17. He was the first child of Theodore and Verna Young. Young's middle name, Romelle, is derived from his father's amateur R&B singing group, The Romells.

18. Married in 1964, Young's parents separated in 1968 and divorced in 1972. Verna later married Curtis Crayon. They had three children together, two sons named Jerome and Tyree (both deceased) and daughter Shameka.

19. In 1976, Young began attending Vanguard Junior High School in Compton, but due to gang violence, he transferred to the safer suburban Roosevelt Junior High School.

20. Verna later married Warren Griffin, whom she met at her new job in Long Beach, which added three stepsisters and one stepbrother to the family.

21. His stepbrother Warren Griffin III would eventually become rapper Warren G.

22. Dr. Dre attended Centennial High School in Compton during his freshman year in 1979, but transferred to Fremont High School in South Central Los Angeles due to poor grades.

23. Dr. Dre attempted to enroll in an apprenticeship program at Northrop Aviation Company, but poor grades at school made him ineligible.

24. Thereafter, he focused on his social life and entertainment for the remainder of his high school years.

25. Dr. Dre fathered a son, Curtis, born December 15, 1981, with Lisa Johnson. Curtis Young was brought up by his mother and first met his father 20 years later, when Curtis became rapper Hood Surgeon.

26. Inspired by the Grandmaster Flash song "The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel", he often attended a club called Eve After Dark to watch many DJs and rappers performing live.

27. Dr. Dre subsequently became a DJ in the club, initially under the name "Dr. J", based on the nickname of Julius Erving, his favorite basketball player.

28. At the club, he met aspiring rapper Antoine Carraby, later to become member DJ Yella of N.W.A.

29. Soon afterwards he adopted the moniker Dr. Dre, a mix of previous alias Dr. J and his first name, referring to himself as the "Master of Mixology".

30. Eve After Dark had a back room with a small four-track studio. In this studio, Dre and Yella recorded several demos.

31. He later joined the musical group World Class Wreckin' Cru under the independent Kru-Cut Records in 1984. The group would become stars of the electro-hop scene that dominated early 1980s West Coast hip hop.

32. Dr. Dre's earliest recordings were released in 1994 on a compilation titled Concrete Roots.

33. His frequent absences from school jeopardized his position as a diver on his school's swim team.

34. After high school, he attended Chester Adult School in Compton following his mother's demands for him to get a job or continue his education.

35. After brief attendance at a radio broadcasting school, he relocated to the residence of his father and residence of his grandparents before returning to his mother's house.

36. He later dropped out of Chester to focus on performing at the Eve's After Dark nightclub.

37. The Dr. Dre Presents the Aftermath album, released on November 26, 1996, featured songs by Dr. Dre himself, as well as by newly signed Aftermath Entertainment artists, and a solo track "Been There, Done That", intended as a symbolic farewell to gangsta rap.

38. Dr. Dre's second solo album, 2001, released on November 16, 1999, was considered an ostentatious return to his gangsta rap roots.

39. Following the success of 2001, Dr. Dre focused on producing songs and albums for other artists.

40. He co-produced six tracks on Eminem's landmark Marshall Mathers LP, including the Grammy-winning lead single, "The Real Slim Shady".

41. On June 25, 2010, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers honored Dr. Dre with its Founders Award for inspiring other musicians.

42. On November 14, 2011, Dre announced that he would be taking a break from music after he finished producing for artists Slim the Mobster and Kendrick Lamar. In this break, he stated that he would "work on bringing his Beats By Dre to a standard as high as Apple" and would also spend time with his family.

43. On January 9, 2012, Dre headlined the final nights of the 2012 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, on the weekends of April 13-15 and April 20-22, 2012.

44. On his Beats 1 radio show "The Pharmacy" on August 1, 2015, Dre announced that he would release what would be his final album, titled Compton: A Soundtrack. It is inspired the N.W.A biopic Straight Outta Compton and is a compilation-style album, featuring a number of frequent collaborators, including Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar and The Game, among others. Dre also talked about his long-delayed Detox album, stating that he did not release the album because it did not meet his standards.

45. Dr. Dre made his first on screen appearance as a weapons dealer in the 1996 bank robbery movie Set It Off.

46. During the May of 2013, Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine donated a $70 million endowment to the University of Southern California to create the USC Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy for Arts, Technology and the Business of Innovation.

47. Dr. Dre has stated that he is a perfectionist and is known to pressure the artists with whom he records to give flawless performances.

48. Dr. Dre married Nicole Threatt, the ex-wife of NBA player Sedale Threatt. They have two children together: a son named Truice and a daughter named Truly.

49. Dr. Dre has been convicted in multiple cases of violence against women and a police officer.

50. It is acknowledged that most of Dr. Dre's raps are written for him by others, though he retains ultimate control over his lyrics and the themes of his songs. As Aftermath producer Mahogany told Scratch: "It's like a class room in [the booth]. He'll have three writers in there. They'll bring in something, he'll recite it, then he'll say. 'Change this line, change this word,' like he's grading papers." As seen in the credits for tracks Young has appeared on, there are often multiple people who contribute to his songs (although often in hip hop many people are officially credited as a writer for a song, even the producer).

Source: Wikipedia.org