Respect the Flow

742. DR. DRE, "Forgot About Dre"
Produced by Dr. Dre; written by Melvin Bradford, Marshall Mathers, and Andre Young
Maverick 17206 1998 Billboard: # 5

Rappers simply can't get respect. I'm not talking about the self-conscious contests for respect that have been the premise of the genre since the 1970s. I'm talking about career respect. If a rocker or pop star enjoys three Top 40 singles, they can tour the oldies circuit for decades after that. But even if a rapper's career begins with two or three best-selling albums, if she or he wants to stay in the business for the long run, there are basically two options: act or produce.

After NWA broke up, Dr. Dre produced and fronted The Chronic, almost certainly the aesthetically finest product that the morally dubious genre of gangsta ever produced. And then . . . he produced, and he produced brilliantly. With a typically uncluttered but still full style of production, his work with Snoop Dogg was cleverer than most listeners appreciated. More important, his achievement in discovering and launching Eminem within the genre was literally unprecedented in pop music. It was as if Sam Phillips had been black; as if hiphop had finally found its Henry Higgins; as if Dre were the Apollo Creed of the genre, training Marshall "Rocky" Mathers to take on a ring full of Clubber Langs.

To give credit where credit is due, Eminem almost consistently presented himself as Dre's sidekick. He does it here too, but it's a little sad that this track--released at almost the height of Em's popularity--leads up to the protegee rather than his producer.

That is unless you think the words are irrelevant, and it's just the tweaking bassline that's the point of the song. But this is rap--is that possible?

Yes, because this isn't quite rap. It's hiphop. Dr. Dre was one of the key figures who irrevocably turned the former genre into the latter. Hiphop selfconsciously embraced funk bass lines like the one employed here, so that flow was no longer just a matter of words. And even if it's Marshall gibber-gabbering the words for much of this track, all the way through the flow is all Andre's.

So forget the star--respect the producer. Respect the flow.