Dr. Dre has been central in several rap careers blowing up, and given the fact that he's been doing this for more than 25 years, he's definitely got some gems of knowledge and interesting experiences to share with the younger generation. He did just that for Esquire this past summer, with his very own "What I've Learned" column, ranging from his music to business to family.
Among the interesting tid-bits of information Dre revealed about himself, was the fact that he says he never listens to his music after it gets released, because at that point, he's all about the sales.
"I don’t even listen to the records after they come out. It’s outlawed in my house. My wife and my kids can’t play any of my music around me. Once it comes out, for me, it’s just business. Numbers," the legendary producer shared.
The West Coast native also spoke on how his mother had him at a young age, how his father's side of the family was into drug-dealing, and how both of these factors affected him.
"My mother got pregnant with me at the age of fifteen. This was ’64, and unheard of at that time. She was told, “You’re fucking your life up. You won’t be shit—and your kid won’t be shit.” Everyone was trying to convince her to get an abortion. She wouldn’t. So it was always embedded in my head as a child that I have to be a success, because those people cannot be right," Dr. Dre said. As for his father, "My father is the oldest of seven boys. And they’re in the street shit, period. Drug dealing and the whole nine. My father’s family steered me away from that life. They were really graphic with me. I saw people doing drugs when I was eleven years old. Back then, the popular drug was PCP. For some reason, when people did this drug, they’d want to take their clothes off and run down the middle of the street. I was watching that at a really young age, seeing firsthand what effect drugs and gangbanging had on people. It was never a happy ending, and my father and my uncles pushed me to leave the street shit alone."
Part of Dre's success is the fact that he devotes himself fully to the music. This may involve staying awake for 79 hours straight, in order to keep the creativity flowing.
"I’ve gone seventy-nine hours without sleep, creating," Dre told Esquire. "When that flow is going, it’s almost like a high. You don’t want it to stop. You don’t want to go to sleep for fear of missing something."
Read the other pearls of wisdom shared by Dre here (obviously no mention of Detox).
