The Defiant Ones (2017) s01e01 Episode Script
Part. 1
1 Eminem: You don't have to be quiet, but just shut the fuck up.
- (laughter) - Question: Are we good? Eminem: Let's cut to the fucking chase, man.
- Question: Let's cut to the chase.
- Dr.
Dre: Boom.
Jon Landau: Does my hair look particularly terrible? I do ask for the right to be able to spit.
- (laughs) - Question: So you got, like, 45? - Sure.
- (beeps) - I love food and wine.
- Man: Dre, take two.
- Take two? What do you mean, "take two"? - (laughter) February, Stevie Nicks.
This is a whole, like, art to this.
You want me to scoot this way? Is that better for the light? I'll put this in the movie.
I'll put all this shit in the movie.
(laughs) Man: That's why I'm trying to tell 'em to go.
- Oh, jeez.
- (laughter) - When is this coming out? - Question: Huh? Say again? When this gonna be out? Question: It should be out next year.
Describe that relationship, Dr.
Dre and Jimmy Iovine.
Okay, cool.
We're talking about Jimmy and Dr.
Dre.
The relationship between Jimmy and Dre.
April 1st, 2014, a rumor leaks that Apple is buying Beats.
So, I call Jimmy like, "Yo, is this for real?" (mimics Jimmy) "No, Will, those are rumors.
It's not real.
" Right? April Fool's! (clicks tongue) Excuse me.
Excuse me.
What's the matter? Take it off.
Jimmy Iovine: I called Dre.
I said, "Dre, "remember De Niro's character, Jimmy, in Goodfellas "when Jimmy told the guys, "'Don't buy any furs.
Don't buy cars.
Don't get showy'?" He said, "Yeah?" I said, "Don't move this weekend.
Don't do anything.
" He says, "I gotcha.
" (laughs) That Friday night Puff calls me.
"Yo, man, is this true or not, this deal? You made a deal with Apple, and you're not telling me?" I said, "Look, I'm talking to a bunch of people about the company.
You gotta respect me, know that I can't talk to you about it.
" Now that was about eight o'clock.
Two in the morning, Puff calls me and starts yelling over the phone.
"You wouldn't tell me? You wouldn't tell your friend? And yet Dr.
Dre and Tyrese are talking about it on Facebook.
" I said, "Where?" He said, "Facebook!" I said, "I I gotta go.
" The homey is drunk off a Heinekens.
- (laughter) - (man yells) The homey drunk off a Hein I look, he said, "Stop searching, motherfucker!" We had gone for, like, six weeks without it leaking.
Billionaire boys' club, for real, homey.
- Huh? Fix your face.
- Yeah, you know that.
- Fix your face.
- You know that.
This thing is leaked.
This thing is loud.
Oh, shit, the Forbes's list just changed.
They need Hey, it came out, like, two weeks ago.
They need to update the Forbes's list.
Shit just changed.
- (laughter) - In a big way.
- Oh my.
- Understand that.
- Man: Oh my.
- The first billionaire in hip-hop, right here from the motherfucking West Coast, believe me.
Oh! Oh shit, nigga.
(people shouting) Fuck y'all, niggas.
What the fuck y'all niggas talking about? Nigga, what? What y'all niggas talking about? Tyrese fucked that up.
This nigga was so drunk and high, I don't know what the fuck he was, but he went, "Yeah, nigga, "the first motherfucking deal you nailed, nigga.
From Compton, nigga.
Yeah, nigga.
" And then Tyrese crip walks.
And I'm I can only imagine Jimmy at that point in time.
"No, this can't be! "This No! This can't What, are you crazy?" Crazy.
It was like, "What is this? How can this possibly be the case?" We start off this Friday morning with some California love.
Newswoman: Hip-hop mogul and headphone tycoon, Dr.
Dre, boasting in a video on Facebook with friend Tyrese Gibson.
The biggest deal in its history, - and hip-hop's first billionaire.
- (camera clicks) Newswoman: The selling price, rumored to be a whopping $3.
2 billion.
Think about it.
Apple known for discretion in its deals, and (laughs) and then, you know, there's, like, a Facebook page with a victory lap by Dr.
Dre.
Gene Munster: I can't imagine what the legal departments were doing - when they saw that video.
- (laughs) This I just a bad deal.
"Yes, hello? This is Apple.
"Oh, you niggas want to talk early, huh? - Take a few yeah, take a couple off.
" - (stifled laughter) "Yeah, take a couple off, nigga.
Shut up, nigga.
It ain't inked yet.
" I had been wanting to work with Apple at that point, it's probably 10 years, maybe more than 10 years.
And I'm like, "How could this be possibly happening?" So, sure, I thought the deal could blow.
I think, you know, for Jimmy, who had to bear the brunt of it I'm sure it was not a good two or three days.
And I felt bad for him, 'cause he was getting he was getting the crap knocked out of him, and he was responsible to all the shareholders to make that deal go through.
He was crushed.
And when he told me when I finally talked to him, he was like "We could potentially lose this.
" You know? And he says "But it's the horse I rode in with.
" Dr.
Dre: I was actually in the studio, excitement was in the room.
You mix excitement with a fucking fifth of alcohol, man, something terrible is bound to happen.
That is in the top three of most embarrassing moments in my life.
- (rain pattering) - (thunder rumbling) Sometimes things like this happen.
And I'm so secluded, I'm so private.
At the same time, I want to have fun, I want to party, and I want to make my music and that whole shit.
But it, you know As far as, um along with cameras around me, like this along with cameras in my studio, around my family, in my home around any fucking thing that I'm doing that I really give a fuck about.
Well, I'm at a place with it right now where I'm comfortable enough to let these things go and to talk about these things.
(thunder rumbles) Okay, God, give us a lightning strike, but keep it out there.
(laughter) (thunder crashes) (thunder crashing) - (whirs) - (grunts) (dramatic music playing) - (chattering) - (feedback) (siren blares) (crowd cheers) (siren blares) (gun fires) You're about to hear what many people consider obscene language and ideas that are offensive.
They are also popular.
(music fades) (people chattering) All right.
- Hey, hey.
- You get the video, man.
- Question: How ya doing? - Hey, hey.
- Question: Good to see ya, brother.
- What's happening? What's up? How you doing, man? (people chattering) Big time movie making, man.
Man: When he comes in, then that's when y'all try to light Man 2: So, guys, show of hands in this back corner, who'll be smoking a cigarette.
Corey Hawkins, a.
k.
a.
, Dr.
Dre.
(laughs) - You know.
- (laughs) (indiscernible dialog on computer) (door closes) Dr.
Dre: Sitting on the set, watching myself being portrayed in a movie is just fucking weird, man.
Man (on monitor): Get the fuck off, man! Get the fuck off me, man! Fuck off me, man! Fuck off! Dr.
Dre: I've had such a traumatic career, but such a fortunate career at the same time.
It seems like these artists that I've worked with are fucking angels to me, you know? They always come in at the right time.
As far as me and Jimmy goes, - we're just some lucky motherfuckers, man.
- (phone rings) Here's Dr.
Dre.
Hello, Dr.
Dre.
Question: First of all, what is he making right now? I'm not interviewing fucking Dre.
- Question: I know you're not interviewing him.
- (Dr.
Dre laughs) Iovine: I always felt that I had to work harder than the next guy - just to do as well as the next guy.
- (applause) And to do better than the next guy, I had to just kill.
Newsman: Jimmy Iovine, the music executive, has worked with everyone from Bruce Springsteen to Lady Gaga, but his partnership with Dr.
Dre is creating the most business buzz these days.
What kind of numbers can you give us on how quickly this business has grown? And has it grown faster than you thought it would? Well, of course it's grown faster than we thought it would.
Iovine: So what happened was, Apple stays true to who I always knew they were, kept their word, ignored all the noise, and made the deal.
Landau: There is this thing called the American dream, and we know it's a myth.
It only applies to very few people.
But Jimmy's one of those people who has not only succeeded, but has become a better person in the process.
(laughter) Tom Petty: He's a scrapper, man.
I mean, he came from Hell's Kitchen.
He's persistent.
This motherfucker is, like He's a different type of motherfucker.
Jimmy has this brute law state.
It can appear rude.
Lots of people don't like him, but brutal honesty is why you want him in the room.
Of course, it's all driven by his low self-esteem.
I mean, but so are we all, you know? - (laughter) - And our visions of grandiosity, you know, on top of that.
What else is there? (laughs) Paul Rosenberg: Jimmy's the guy firing a million ideas a minute, and Dre is looking at those ideas, using this Dr.
Dre bullshit detector that is the best in the world.
Jimmy Iovine is the levitator.
Dre is the innovator.
Rosenberg: They produce each other.
(camera clicks) - (seagulls cawing) - (waves crashing) (rock music playing) Monkey see, monkey do, I don't know why I'd rather be dead than cool, I don't know why Every line ends in rhyme, I don't know why Less is more, love is blind, I don't know why Stay, stay away Stay away, stay away Give an inch, take a smile, I don't know why Fashion shits, fashion style Yo, I'm starting to sweat right now just listening to this shit.
This is bananas.
Nirvana, Kurt Cobain, that's, uh my favorite rock group of all time.
Here's a a little bit of Kraftwerk, "Metal on Metal," live.
(music playing) Dr.
Dre: I was born in Compton, two weeks after my mother's 16th birthday.
A lot of shit went on with my father.
He's smart as shit, but crazy as shit, too.
Very abusive, physically and, uh, verbally.
A lot of drugs.
And he was out of the picture before I could talk, you know? But the violence that was going on, it was just normal.
(helicopter whupping) Police dispatcher (on radio): Unit 13-80-61, 13-80-61, drive-by shooting, confirm one victim down.
53-18 South Main.
Man (on radio): Here you go.
I knew it was gonna happen, 'cause this is a Saturday night, it's terribly warm, the moon's out, and the gangs are already starting to shoot.
Dr.
Dre: Compton, especially where and when I grew up, it was going down.
Newsman: More than 70,000 gang members live in Los Angeles County.
Violence can erupt any time.
Dr.
Dre: Because my mother was having a kid at such a young age, people were telling her, her life isn't gonna be shit.
Her son's life isn't gonna be shit.
So I can remember my entire youth, my mom banging in my head that I had to be a success at something.
Verna Griffin: I used it as a tool.
It made me strive to do better.
Dr.
Dre: She's one of the strongest people I know.
Bill Kurtis: Compton was the American dream.
Sunny California.
Temptingly close to the Los Angeles ghetto in the '50s and '60s, it became the black American dream.
But the dream has turned sour.
They have been unable to solve the problems of crime and growing welfare, which is slowly turning suburban Compton into an extension of the black inner city.
Bill Kurtis, CBS News, Compton, California.
Yeah, I mean, if you know anything about hip-hop or the history of hip-hop, you know that melody.
It's like late '70s, early '80s, Kraftwerk was a big inspiration for a lot of hip-hop artists back then, you know? When hip-hop was really starting from the ground floor.
So, you know, they're definitely one of my inspirations.
(clicks) Griffin: I think it was born in him, the music.
- He liked noise.
- (music playing) He's always been like that.
When he was a baby, you just put him somewhere near a speaker, and he'd just lay there and kind of looked in the air like he's searching for the notes, the sounds, and stuff.
- Man: Hey, what's happening? - Man 2: Hey, Tommy.
(chattering) We always had the house that everybody would congregate.
There was always parties and dancing.
Griffin: When company would come over, Andre would be the little DJ.
Dr.
Dre: Before I could read, if there was a song that I knew everybody liked, I just knew what that label looked like, so I would stack up 10 45s in the order that I saw fit.
Griffin: He'd just stack 'em up and play them.
I'm in for real, baby Gonna keep movin' Dr.
Dre: My relationship with my stepfather was up and down.
My second husband, same crazy problems, abuse and all that stuff.
Dr.
Dre: I saw my share of violence.
My mom tried to keep me away from that as much as possible, so I was to myself quite a bit.
And my brother Tyree became my best friend.
We were three years apart, and, um, this is the person that I really knew, and this person knew everything about me.
But I don't want to get into that.
I don't want to get into Tyree right now.
Yeah.
Moving down the line Griffin: Tyree, he just idolized his brother.
And, um, Andre was just really quiet, - a thinker.
He was very smart.
- Just like I want you Want you to get down, baby When I get down, when I get down with you Yes, darling, oh, ooh - (music stops) - By the way, I'm never gonna be able to do it any better than what they did.
It's the This is just my version.
(men vocalizing) Yeah, I gotta spend some time on this shit, but like, seriously - I want you - being able to go in and touch these vocals, - I want you the right way - especially the tracks of a song not only that I grew up on, a track that I really love.
- But I want you to want me too - Man.
It's motherfucking chill bumps, man.
It's just This is crazy.
I, uh, uh, uh Yah, yah, yah, uh, uh, uh I want you, babe Can't you see? (moaning) I (vocalizing) Woo! Yeah! - I - (laughs) Yo, we're really doing this shit, man.
Ah! Janet Mormile: Jimmy Iovine, my little brother.
We used to call him "the guy who fell to Earth," because he was so unlike anyone else.
Iovine: I was born in Red Hook, Brooklyn, in 1953.
My grandparents came from Italy.
And my mother's father, he was a longshoreman.
My dad went to work down at the piers as well as a longshoreman.
There wasn't a lot of talk about being a doctor or a lawyer, but I was a very fortunate guy, you know? I had a mother and father that loved me a lot, and my sister, and my grandmother, and my aunts, and my uncles.
Mormile: I don't know how old he was when he started walking.
He never had to, because my mother and I would do everything for him.
And then, of course, we were so worried when he started school.
(camera clicks) I don't remember one moment of high school that I enjoyed.
Catholic school, nuns, suits, jacket, tie, no girls, all guys.
I hated every second of it.
I would make his tie every morning.
I hated it.
I used to have a lot of trouble reading.
And I would do his homework.
I was below average.
- I wanted to get out of school.
- (bell rings) So, I bought a guitar, 14 to 16 was my band.
And we would all go to these dinky, little dark places.
Couple of really nice clubs in New York City.
Mormile: You should never put the lights on in places like this.
Iovine: We were rock stars or something.
- Mormile: He was amazing.
- Iovine: We weren't very good.
And that's when frustration first set in, you know? Like, "Oh, okay, this is this is tough.
" They're not gonna ask you to join The Rolling Stones.
So then I was thinking not what I was gonna do, I was thinking what I wasn't gonna do, 'cause my father had plans for me to go down to the docks, where he had a job for me, you know? I I'm just I wanted to do something that felt special.
Dr.
Dre: Yeah, it was really interesting, and most people I bumped into still don't know what their real passion is, whereas I was really blessed to find hip-hop.
Griffin: At a early age, Andre had a focus.
- Focus, baby, focus - Dre, Dre, Dre Griffin: At first, it was dancing, the Freak Patrol.
Damn, Freak Patrol.
You're taking me back now, okay.
- He had it together.
- It was terrible, - and I'm actually embarrassed - (record scratches) talking about that shit right now, man.
Griffin: I would always say, "You can't get no job pop locking.
You need to find you a job.
" And he was always coming in second.
And I remember him saying that he needed to do something that he could be first in.
Dr.
Dre: There was a club in the neighborhood called Eve After Dark.
One of my uncles was a bouncer at this club, and he snuck me in one night.
Kurtis Blow was performing, and his little brother, Davy DMX, was the DJ.
(record scratching) This is the first time in my life that I saw scratching.
Just fucked me up.
I knew that this was my calling.
There was a friend of mine, he put together two turntables, and he used a balance knob to be able to go from turntable to turntable.
I started doing this thing, and I just fell in love with it.
Man: All right, are you ready to go off? Well, check it out.
Right about now, Dr.
Dre is on the wheels, and I'm about to cold tear shit up.
Woman: Here we go.
Here we go.
Dr.
Dre: Whenever I was home, I was practicing.
My mother was really happy about it, because When you can hear them, you know where they're at.
Dr.
Dre: Christmas, my mom bought me a Numark 1150 mixer.
I have the ability to make tapes now.
One of the best gifts I ever got in my life.
Griffin: We lived a couple of blocks from Eric Eazy-E.
Dr.
Dre: One of the first time that I performed for an audience was in Eazy-E's backyard after a block party.
- Next thing I know - All the children all the kids in the neighborhood were coming over to my house to get their tape.
I would shout your name out on the tape, or you could talk on your own tape.
This is the first way I started hustling and making money.
Griffin: And it just grew.
You could just see it just growing.
And he's just, like, soaking it in, wanting more.
All day, he was in that room.
I'd go in there, and I could hear the music blasting.
He asleep with the headphones on.
I just took 'em off.
I didn't know how to turn anything off.
- (music fades) - (crickets chirping) Newsman: Of course we're talking about Dr.
Dre.
He started N.
W.
A.
, remember that? Now he's taking his success and a lot of his money to build a new academy with music mogul Jimmy Iovine, who donated about $70 million together to foster entrepreneurship that brings students entertainment, technology, and business skills over at USC.
It's amazing.
He doesn't have a college degree, but yet he has an academy with his name on it.
Newswoman: Yeah, it's fantastic.
Iovine: To all of today's graduates I can't imagine what's going through your minds right now.
I never had the opportunity to go to a great university like this.
I didn't get here today like you did, by studying hard and excelling in school.
Yet, here I stand before you - at this amazing crossroads in your life.
- (cheering) Iovine: When I graduated high school, my mother and father said, "You have to go to college.
" (helicopter whupping) I said, "No kidding," because the draft.
- I knew if I hated high school - (explosions) I was really gonna hate Vietnam.
So they accepted me in John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
I thought it sounded good, like maybe that's what Alfred was in Batman.
Like, I had no idea.
Maybe I was dyslexic.
I don't want to find out now 'cause that'd only rock the boat.
Things are kind of good.
But this was the first time somebody said, "You're a nice kid.
You need to go do something else.
" Mormile: So he would stay up in his room and listen to music for hours on end.
Iovine: I read the back of album covers.
I learned about producing.
That's so cool.
He would make you a super fan of whatever he was a fan of.
"Do you hear that sound? And do you know why you hear that sound?" And he wanted to try the music business.
Iovine: And I met, through my cousin, this incredible songwriter, Ellie Greenwich, who got me my first studio job.
Mormile: Jimmy got a job sweeping out the studio, but somehow he got fired from sweeping.
She got me another job, and I had 90-day trial.
- On the 89th day - He got fired.
You get a kid a job and he gets fired, you're not gonna get him another job.
So on the way home, I called Ellie Greenwich.
She said, "Don't get on the train.
Go down to the Record Plant.
" And it turns out there were these two Italian guys.
And this guy, Roy Cicala, who owned the studio, was a really groundbreaking recording engineer.
And how he would teach you was to work through you.
And we just hit it off.
He sits you at the console, and he'd say, "Give me a compressor on the vocal, "2 dB at 10,000 cycles.
No, try three.
No, two sounds better.
" And as you're turning the knob, you're hearing the vocal get brighter.
(echoing) Or you put the echo on, the tape delay, and you actually hear it.
He goes, "No, that's too much.
(echo stops) "Have it all right, slow the tape machine up a little bit.
(deep voice) Okay, do you hear why that's working?" (normal voice) And you get a feel for how to make a record, because I didn't have any skills.
And then one day, Roy called me at home.
- (bells ringing) - It was Easter Sunday, and he said, "I need you to come in today to answer the phones.
" Went to my mother.
I said, "Mom, I gotta go to work.
" She said, "Are you crazy? It's Easter Sunday.
"Your family's coming over.
Your aunts, your uncles, "all your cousins are coming here.
We have to go to church.
We have to" (train clacking) So, I went into work, and when I got there I went, "Okay.
" Roy said, "I just wanted to see "if you would come in on Easter Sunday.
"The assistant engineer can't make it, and John and I want you to do it.
" Ain't no people on the Iovine: Like anyone from my generation, ground zero was The Beatles.
- The Beatles! - (crowd screaming) Iovine: I was just plain old terrified.
I was in way above my head, but my father was a real cheerleader.
He always told me that every room you go into is better 'cause you're there.
So I never felt like nobody wants me here or I don't belong.
Fear's a powerful thing.
I mean, it's got a lot of firepower.
And that was the beginning of making fear a tailwind instead of a headwind.
Old dirt road Mormile: That was the beginning.
He went from sweeping the floors to working the board with John Lennon.
It made him believe, you know, "If John Lennon thinks I can do it, I really can.
" Iovine: That's when I graduated to second engineer, Easter Sunday, 1973.
- (helicopter whirring) - (music stops) - This is where I leave you - (guns firing) - Carry you - (people screaming) - Carry you - (sirens approaching) In the city of Compton This is where I leave you Dr.
Dre: I like being in the control room.
I like sitting behind those buttons.
That's my comfort area.
That's where I fought to remain, right in front of those buttons.
I never considered myself a rapper.
I still don't necessarily like the way I sound on the Mic.
And it's a hell of a career choice for a person with all these issues.
(music stops) - (grunts) - What up? Ice Cube: Dre is still one of the most confident dudes I know.
Anybody that go in the studio with Dre I don't care if they're in there one session a month the session with Dre is the session that you will pull from the most.
You know my name, you know my reputation Survive through the time, you know my name You know my reputation Dr.
Dre: That's all I need.
That's good.
Rock with the whole line, though.
Survive through the time, you know my name You know my reputation - You know what it is - I think that's money.
Moolah.
Me and Dre, you don't like it, you can lay Ice Cube: At the time I met him, he was Dr.
Dre, - one of the best DJs in LA.
- Back then the DJ was the man.
Today was a good day Man (on PA): Anybody ever been to a videotaping before? - (scattered cheers) - Man: Huh? Who is the DJ? That's the new guy we got.
We call him Dr.
Dre.
All right.
Dr.
Dre - let it rip.
- (scratching) Alonzo Williams: This is the entrance to the Eve After Dark.
This was a teenage night club, 1979.
This was where it all started.
Mirrors on the wall.
On a good Saturday night, if it was packed, the mirrors would sweat like it was raining out.
And the ceiling would get hot and moist, and they'd start to sag.
And we built a stage out front so that Yella - Man: Yella.
- Williams: could be seen.
- It was just off the chain.
- (camera clicking) DJ Yella: Wreckin' Cru we were a crew of DJs, and we had it going on.
We were just hot.
But we was always every weekend for a couple of years.
- Dr.
Dre: Alonzo was the club owner.
- Williams: I was the big dog.
Dr.
Dre: That was the guy that you wanted to know if you wanted to DJ.
Williams: One of my boys on the cleanup crew, kept on "Hey, man, you wanna hear my boy Dre?" I'm like, "Well, I got enough DJs.
I got four DJs already.
- (siren passes) - "I don't need no fucking more DJs.
" (people chattering) Dr.
Dre: At that time, my whole mission was to get on the turntables.
I didn't give a fuck about anything else that was going on in the club.
I wasn't tripping on no girls, nothing.
I wanted to be able to get in there and rock, and Alonzo used to always be standing out in front of the club.
Williams: 'Cause the club was technically 18 and over.
- (distant siren) - And I tried to keep it that way.
Him and Eazy came up.
They wasn't dressed right.
So, I like, "No, no, no, no.
" Dre started talking to me.
You know, Dre's a smooth-talking motherfucker, okay? So I said, "Look, man, change clothes.
Come back and see me next week.
" Dre changed clothes.
Eazy didn't.
So, just to piss Eazy off, I let Dre in, made Eazy's ass stand outside.
And how Dre got on the turntables if you waterboarded my ass, I couldn't tell you.
'Cause all I know is, Eazy's talking shit to me downstairs, "You Jheri-curled motherfucker.
" I had a perm.
I had Jheri curl, whatever it was back then.
And I came in, like, "What the fuck is going on?" Please, Mr.
Postman, look and see - Whoa, yeah - Is there a letter in your bag for me? Williams: Understand this, we never put two different tempos with each other.
Dre was the first person I'd ever heard do that, and people stopped dancing to look.
There must be some word today, yeah From my boyfriend so far away DJ Yella: "Mr.
Postman" and "Jive Rhythm Tracks 122.
" Putting the old '60s song onto the new song - caught everybody off-guard.
- It was like some musical, magical shit.
- Oh, oh, oh, oh - (scratching) People were still grooving.
They was grooving confused, though.
Please, Mr.
Postman I know why they confused.
I'm confused my damn self.
That was one of the most famous mixes I've ever heard.
First time he DJ'd in the club.
Right there on the stage right here.
Right there.
Griffin: This particular night, I went to pick him up, And he wouldn't stop talking.
"Man, the crowd was going wild.
" And then the manager drives up and says, "How would you like a job?" (laughs) Dr.
Dre: That was a great night for me.
From that point, me and Yella became really good friends.
DJ Yella: Once we met, me and Dre were like Batman and Robin.
Oh, you better Dr.
Dre: Wreckin Cru was a traveling show also.
It was just genuine good fun, man.
- Innocent.
- Wait a minute, Mr.
Postman Please check it and see just one more time for me - You gotta - (music continues) I actually got some turntables last year.
They're still in a box.
(laughs) - Question: When's the last time? - In public? - Shit.
I'm twenty years? - Just for fun.
- Gotta dust 'em off.
- Man: Word.
- (laughs) - Absolutely.
Man: We want to put together a show designed by yourself that says what you want to say, i.
e.
takes people as far back to the history of it as you want to go, but also as up-to-date with the new stuff as you want to go.
We believe that shows like yours need to be on every other week.
So what we have here is we're looking across the week from Monday to Thursday.
That's all of that.
Look for the lines.
A good horizontal in a radio schedule means good clarity.
Can't you just tell me what happened? - (laughter) - I can tell you what happened.
(chatter, laughter) Iovine: When I was growing up, the way people worked, you had no choice but to work really hard or you get fired.
And you couldn't wait for it to end.
- Hi, Don.
- (chattering) Bruce Springsteen: You had two kinds of guys we ran into at that time.
There were the kinds of guys that wanted to go home at five o'clock, and their interest in what you were doing didn't exceed the normal demands of the day for them.
And those guys never lasted.
Because when you're trying to push the boundaries on things and when you're moving into different types of frontiers, you need to be surrounded by people who really believe in what you're doing.
Iovine: And I had never witnessed anything like that before.
I had never understood that.
Everything I ever did in my life, I wanted to stop doing it.
- (distortion) - (tape fluttering) Iovine.
'Cause I couldn't hear myself in the damn headphones.
- What else is new? - (man chuckles) (distortion) Iovine: Bruce taught me a work ethic.
Springsteen: In 1975, we're trying to make "Born to Run," and we're having great difficulty doing so.
(people chattering) Springsteen: Walked into the Record Plant.
This was our first step inside a professional recording studio.
A skinny, little Italian kid, sitting at the tape machine.
Basic job was to take the tape on and off, push the stop and start button.
That was Jimmy Iovine.
He came with the furniture.
Iovine: I did come with the furniture.
(laughter) Iovine: And I came in a few nights later, and our engineer was gone.
Landau looked to me and said, "Can you do this?" And I wasn't really sure if I could do it or not, but I said, "Yeah, why not?" And that was my first solo flight.
Springsteen: We gotta stay cool tonight, Eddie 'Cause man, we got ourselves out on that line And if we blow this one They ain't gonna be looking for just me this time Landau: Bruce is a whole other story.
The center of what he's doing is to try and create an artistic vision.
There was an intellectual aspect to it.
Springsteen: We were just very, very determined.
So, I suppose if you were new to our club, the relentless pursuit of your idea would have probably exhausted you.
(distortion) But it was simply understood that you're there because you believe what we're doing is worth it.
And my job was to make sure that it was.
One, two! Landau: Bruce used to have this thing where he simply lost track of time.
A lot of experimenting going on.
Sometimes we would really seem like we were spinning our wheels.
We worried every little detail to death.
Springsteen: No, I think we spent three weeks - trying to get drum sounds - Man: Here we go, here we go.
which is indulgent, but sometimes you need to be indulged.
Iovine: Bruce would stand over me, say one word over and over again.
"Stick.
" - Springsteen: Which became shorthand for - Stick.
not hearing resonance and size and power.
- Stick.
- Iovine: I couldn't hear anymore.
The speakers were so loud for so many days, - and I was getting overwhelmingly tired.
- Springsteen: Stick.
Landau: Jimmy would get impatient.
And all of us, including Bruce, would be feeling that.
But I wasn't saying, "I'm sorry," to anybody that I was dragging through the mill.
Iovine: Coffee wasn't working anymore.
- Coca-Cola wasn't working anymore.
- Springsteen: Stick.
Springsteen: There were hours when he would simply fall asleep at the sound board.
(laughs) - Stick.
- You'd give him a nudge, he would wake up.
Iovine: It was brutal.
Springsteen: The engineer would take the blame, and I was not above laying it upon him until we got our sounds.
Iovine: It's a stick hitting a drum.
- Stick.
Stick.
Stick.
- Three weeks.
- Stick.
Stick.
Stick.
Stick.
- Landau: So when I'd get him alone, I said, "Jimmy, "stay in the fucking saddle.
You don't get thrown.
" I said, "Landau, I'm done.
I quit.
" (drum playing) I said, "I'm done.
This guy "I kill myself for this guy, I work really hard, "and I do everything I possibly can.
And it's it's it's unacceptable.
" He said, "Calm down.
" I said, "Jimmy, you're missing the big picture.
"What are we here for? "We are here to help Bruce "make the best record he can.
That's the job.
"We're not here to make you happy.
"We're not here to make me happy.
"We're here to contribute to the project.
And it's Bruce's project.
" Iovine: He said, "If you go back in and say to Bruce, "'I'm here to support you.
This is not about me.
"It's about the album," "you will have a friend for the rest of your life, and you'll have learned a big lesson.
" "That's the big picture, right?" I said, "Yes, it is.
" (cheering) In the day we sweat it out on the streets Of a runaway American dream At night we ride Through mansions of glory In suicide machines Sprung from cages Iovine: Everybody on that album bonded.
You never forget your first experiences like that, and I learned so much.
Whoa! Iovine: And then having it come out and be blown around and be on the cover of Time and Newsweek.
And it was just an incredible, incredible experience.
'Cause tramps like us Baby, we were born to run Whoa (vocalizing) Yeah, yeah Iovine: Everybody won.
The studio was telling me how terrific it is.
And it's number one.
And, you know, it's a big deal to somebody who's 23 years old, I guess, right? So I was really feeling myself, you know? (laughs) What I call "breathing my own exhaust.
" - (song ends) - (cheers, applause) Williams: World Class Wreckin Cru made several records.
See, records are like children.
You never met a mother with a ugly baby, okay? I never had a flop.
They just wasn't as popular as the other ones, okay? Man: Records.
Mixer.
Turntables.
Speakers.
Williams: Right now, you in my backyard.
We call it Lonzoland.
That's the studio.
Everybody came through here at one point in time.
Ice Cube: And we were all learning on the fly.
Yella would read instructions, and Dre was like, "What do I do next?" "Uh, hit 'start' and press the metridome at the same time.
" That's how we learned how to mix, and Dre was a perfectionist.
Always a step ahead of everybody.
Ice Cube: Dre wanted to do hip-hop, but Alonzo had him doing slow jams and fast music.
Yeah, "Surgery," it to be perfectly honest with you you know what, I I I don't want to say anything bad about that record, you know? It was my opening.
But, um yeah, it was The record was corny as fuck, you know what I mean? It's (singing along) Dr.
Dre, Dr.
Dre (both singing along) Dr.
Dre, Dr.
Dre D-Dre, Dre, D-Dre, Dre, Dre, Dre Williams: World Class Wreckin Cru made several records.
We had to do what we had to do at that time.
This was no bullshit, okay? Dre, Dre, Dre, Dre, Dre, Dre We some pretty motherfuckers.
We colorful.
That was in the Prince days.
We was a decent-looking group.
I was the lead keyboard holder.
Holder.
I didn't play the motherfucker.
I just held it.
(laughs) Bom Williams: There was too much pussy around us not to be on stage.
I'm not stupid, okay? (vocalizing) We had more orgies at my house - (breathing heavily) - after-parties.
Remember that shit, Dre? Remember Cathy? - Motherfucker, you remember that? - Shit! - (water bubbling) - (music fading) (water dripping) Williams: The Wreckin Cru went up, peaked a little bit, then it was coming down.
The music, the clothing.
I had to go get me a job valeting cars.
Dr.
Dre: I felt like I was being suffocated.
You know, respect is very high on the list of my priorities.
I have to know that you respect me and I respect you.
The way I operate is completely on how I feel.
- (rock music playing) - How do you make me feel? How does this record make me feel? How does this environment make me feel? If it makes me feel fucked up, I'm outta here.
Slow ride Take it easy Iovine: The first project I produced, Foghat, I did it for the money.
At the time, you got paid three points to be a producer, and their last album sold four million.
So I immediately said, "At 20 cents a record, that's $800,000.
" I'm getting $10 an hour as an engineer.
I'm like, "I'm in.
" And I wasn't ready.
It was the wrong kind of music for me.
I mean, I brought my girlfriend to some of the sessions, you know what I mean? I was like I was a knucklehead.
I wasn't good yet.
They were great and really talented, but I was not doing my job right, and I got fired.
And I remember feeling like, "Oh my God! I'm gonna be embarrassed to my friends, my family.
" They're gonna say, "Oh my God, he got fired.
" You automatically think that everybody's paying attention to your life, which is complete bullshit.
(train rattling) So I went back to the Record Plant, 'cause that was the only place I really felt safe.
I knew myself in the Record Plant.
And I walk in, and Patti Smith is there.
Patti was really ground zero for punk music her, the Ramones, you know? Great poet and really respected.
She was around on "Born to Run.
" I used to see her in the hallway and stuff, you know? And she thought I was working really hard, (laughs) 'cause I was working really hard.
And she says, "I want you to produce my album.
" And I said, "Well, you know, I just got fired from this gig.
" And she goes, "Whatever.
" Patti Smith: I didn't care whether he was liked by Foghat.
He made an impression on me immediately.
If Bruce wasn't there working, he would stay for hours and study other people's mixes, other albums.
He'd find some old tape to see if he could improve that.
He worked all the time.
Iovine: I said to myself, "No fun, no life, no nothing.
You're gonna give up everything and put a hundred percent into this.
" That's the kind of guy I wanted.
Landau: So Jimmy, unbeknownst to us, is working with Patti as a producer while he's engineering our record, and she was coming in in the middle of the night.
Smith: I had had a serious accident in the beginning of '77, and I was way behind preparing for the album.
We didn't have a whole lot of songs.
Iovine: We didn't have a single to get you into the album.
Landau: Now, Bruce had this song that was not quite at the center of the album that he was making, but he suspected that if it was on there, that might be the focus.
He didn't want it.
I really don't know to this day how Jimmy wangled this song out of Bruce.
Springsteen: He took me out to Coney Island for a drive, and somehow he let slip, "Hey, I'm producing now.
" "Great.
" "You know that song, 'Because the Night'?" "Yes, I do.
" "Are you gonna use it?" "No, I don't think I am.
" "Do you mind if I give it to Patti Smith?" "Bruce, this song w I mean, we "how could we give how could we pass on this song being on your album? Are you crazy?" He says, "Yeah, but, you know, it's" So, I brought it to Patti.
"Would you listen to it? Maybe you wanna, you know, collaborate.
" And I was like, "Jimmy, you know, I only want to write my own songs.
" So I took this cassette, I went back to my little apartment, and I put it on the mantle and then forgot about it.
Even now it makes me laugh.
Every day I come to the studio, he wouldn't say hello to me.
He'd say, "Did you listen to the song? Listen to the song?" I said, "Eh, I didn't listen to it yet.
" "Should we go back to your apartment, listen to this song?" For days, "Did you listen to the song?" At that time, I was building a romance with my future husband, Fred "Sonic" Smith, and he lived in Detroit, so I only got to talk to him once a week.
I'm home, and I'm waiting for Fred to call.
7:30 comes.
He doesn't call.
Eight o'clock comes.
I was getting really agitated.
And I noticed the tape sitting on the mantle, and I thought, "Oh, I'll listen to that darn song.
" Take me now, baby Here as I am Pull me close Try and understand I put it on, and it's flawlessly produced, great chorus.
It's in my key.
It's anthemic.
Come on now Try and understand The way I feel So Fred finally calls me, like, almost midnight.
- Take my hand - But by midnight, I had written all the lyrics.
"Have I doubt, when I'm alone, love is a ring, the telephone.
" I was waiting for Fred.
Because the night belongs to lovers Because the night belongs to love Because the night belongs to lovers Because the night Belongs to love The next day, Jimmy goes "Did you listen to the song?" I said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
" "What'd you think?" "I wrote lyrics to it.
" "What? Where are they?" In, like, two days, we recorded it.
Landau: Now, Bruce had accomplished a great deal by then.
One thing he hadn't had was a top 10 single.
Pop! Landau: We hadn't finished with Darkness, so while Jimmy is engineering our album, this comes out, and the single goes to top 10.
Springsteen: There is the talent of Jimmy Iovine.
He eases in, and in his very slippery way, greases all the wheels so things happen at a certain moment.
And Jimmy Iovine works his magic.
So exciting.
I mean, I'd walk down the street in the Village, in New York, and it would be coming out of boom boxes or every record store.
In fact, I got flack for that, because people were saying, "Oh, you know, you sold out.
You're a punk rocker, and you have a hit song.
" And I said, "Punk rock is about freedom.
"It's not about your chart position.
And I'll sing any fucking song I want.
" - (vocalizes) - (music stops) - (traffic sounds) - (cars honking) Smith: It wasn't that Jimmy wanted to be the number one guy.
It was like he was ambitious for you.
And, uh he was ambitious for me.
You always felt that his whole goal was for the world to see what he was seeing.
(cars honking) - Dr.
Dre: Wow.
- Woman: It's beautiful.
- Dr.
Dre: Iovine.
- Iovine: Yes, sir.
- (Dr.
Dre laughs) - Good idea, right? Dr.
Dre: This is nutso.
Iovine: See that roundish building over there? Like, the end of this block, it sort of curves at the end? - When I was 23 years old - Dr.
Dre: Yeah.
I had an apartment in that building.
- Really? - It was - Overlooking the park? - Yep, it was $1,400 a month.
(laughs) Shit.
- Times have changed.
(laughs) - Yeah.
$1,400 a month, right now Springsteen: You know, people become successful, and they get locked into the behaviors that led them to be a success.
Jimmy was very, very good at letting go of the things that might have made him a success to this point.
He's willing to shed that and go for something completely else, and not afraid to partner with other very visionary people.
So, Jimmy's career is based on a tremendous lack of fear of moving forward.
Dr.
Dre: It was scary for me, leaving the group, 'cause I was separating myself from this thing that taught me everything I knew up till then, and just taking that little bit of knowledge that I had and trying to go off on my own and create something entirely new.
But I knew I had this talent, and I knew I gotta just step up, be my own man, so I took the gamble.
But I was limited on equipment, and the only person I knew that had money at that time was Eazy.
He was selling drugs, and, you know.
Man: He was a hustler.
Ice Cube: Eazy had money.
Eazy wanted to get into the music business, to be a label owner.
Dr.
Dre: So, me and Eazy, we decided to start a label called Ruthless Records.
And I wanted to do something for the streets, something that the guys in the park were gonna be able to relate to, 'cause New York had everything covered as far as hip-hop.
But West Coast hip-hop in '86 was pretty much nonexistent, so I convinced Cube to write a song for us.
And I wrote "Boyz-n-the-Hood" for him.
Dr.
Dre: Los Angeles has a car culture.
If you didn't have subwoofers in your car, you wasn't shit.
That's what made me start paying attention to sonics and clarity.
And when we did "Boyz-n-the-Hood," I wanted to make sure that those subwoofers were working.
It was so powerful, your jaw dropped.
Dr.
Dre: I'm much better and much more comfortable directing an artist than being an artist myself, and Eazy had this creative part about him that was just so street.
So I decided, "I'm gonna talk Eazy into recording this record.
" He looked at me like I was nuts.
He kept saying, "I'm not a rapper.
I've never rapped before in my life.
" But I had a baby at the time.
I needed money.
I was determined to get him to do this song.
I had no idea how it was gonna come out.
As a matter of fact, I didn't think it was gonna work, but I spent two hours talking him into getting on the microphone.
And finally, he makes me turn the lights off, he puts on dark glasses, and we got started.
- (music ends) - (tape player clicks) (whirring, clicks) (clicks) Cruisin down the street in my six-fo' Jocking the bitches, slapping the hoes Went to the park to get the scoop Knuckleheads out there cold, shooting some hoops A car pulls up, who can it be? A fresh El Camino rolling, Kilo G He rolled down his window, and he started to say It's all about making that GTA 'Cause the boys in the hood are always hard You come talking that trash, we'll pull your card Knowin nothin' in life but to be legit Don't quote me, boy, 'cause I ain't said shit Yo, man (record scratching) Yo, man Yo, yo, yo, man Yo, man, yo, man, yo, man Man: Get the fuck out! Pump that, pump that Pump, pump, pump, pump Pump, pump, pump that Pump that, pump that Man: Motherfucker say what? Eazy-E: Donald B's in the place To give me the pace He said my man JD Is on freebase The boy JD was a friend of mine Till I caught him in my car Trying to steal a Alpine Chased him up the street To call a truce The silly motherfucker Pulls out a deuce-deuce Little did he know I had a loaded 12-gauge One sucker dead LA Times, front page 'Cause the boys in the hood are always hard You come talking that trash We'll pull your card Knowin nothin' in life But to be legit Don't quote me, boy 'Cause I ain't said shit Yo, Leroy Yo, yo, yo, yo, Leroy Yo, Leroy, yo, yo, yo, yo, Leroy Yo, Leroy, yo, Leroy, yo, Leroy, yo, Leroy (police siren chirps) Beer Dr beer Dr Beer, beer, beer Dr Beer Dr beer Dr Beer drinking, breath stinking Sniffing glue Get, get, get Get, get, get Eazy-E: Yeah, I kicked a little ass.
That was a blast from the past, motherfucker.
Get busy, y'all Y'all, y'all, y'all! (music fades)
- (laughter) - Question: Are we good? Eminem: Let's cut to the fucking chase, man.
- Question: Let's cut to the chase.
- Dr.
Dre: Boom.
Jon Landau: Does my hair look particularly terrible? I do ask for the right to be able to spit.
- (laughs) - Question: So you got, like, 45? - Sure.
- (beeps) - I love food and wine.
- Man: Dre, take two.
- Take two? What do you mean, "take two"? - (laughter) February, Stevie Nicks.
This is a whole, like, art to this.
You want me to scoot this way? Is that better for the light? I'll put this in the movie.
I'll put all this shit in the movie.
(laughs) Man: That's why I'm trying to tell 'em to go.
- Oh, jeez.
- (laughter) - When is this coming out? - Question: Huh? Say again? When this gonna be out? Question: It should be out next year.
Describe that relationship, Dr.
Dre and Jimmy Iovine.
Okay, cool.
We're talking about Jimmy and Dr.
Dre.
The relationship between Jimmy and Dre.
April 1st, 2014, a rumor leaks that Apple is buying Beats.
So, I call Jimmy like, "Yo, is this for real?" (mimics Jimmy) "No, Will, those are rumors.
It's not real.
" Right? April Fool's! (clicks tongue) Excuse me.
Excuse me.
What's the matter? Take it off.
Jimmy Iovine: I called Dre.
I said, "Dre, "remember De Niro's character, Jimmy, in Goodfellas "when Jimmy told the guys, "'Don't buy any furs.
Don't buy cars.
Don't get showy'?" He said, "Yeah?" I said, "Don't move this weekend.
Don't do anything.
" He says, "I gotcha.
" (laughs) That Friday night Puff calls me.
"Yo, man, is this true or not, this deal? You made a deal with Apple, and you're not telling me?" I said, "Look, I'm talking to a bunch of people about the company.
You gotta respect me, know that I can't talk to you about it.
" Now that was about eight o'clock.
Two in the morning, Puff calls me and starts yelling over the phone.
"You wouldn't tell me? You wouldn't tell your friend? And yet Dr.
Dre and Tyrese are talking about it on Facebook.
" I said, "Where?" He said, "Facebook!" I said, "I I gotta go.
" The homey is drunk off a Heinekens.
- (laughter) - (man yells) The homey drunk off a Hein I look, he said, "Stop searching, motherfucker!" We had gone for, like, six weeks without it leaking.
Billionaire boys' club, for real, homey.
- Huh? Fix your face.
- Yeah, you know that.
- Fix your face.
- You know that.
This thing is leaked.
This thing is loud.
Oh, shit, the Forbes's list just changed.
They need Hey, it came out, like, two weeks ago.
They need to update the Forbes's list.
Shit just changed.
- (laughter) - In a big way.
- Oh my.
- Understand that.
- Man: Oh my.
- The first billionaire in hip-hop, right here from the motherfucking West Coast, believe me.
Oh! Oh shit, nigga.
(people shouting) Fuck y'all, niggas.
What the fuck y'all niggas talking about? Nigga, what? What y'all niggas talking about? Tyrese fucked that up.
This nigga was so drunk and high, I don't know what the fuck he was, but he went, "Yeah, nigga, "the first motherfucking deal you nailed, nigga.
From Compton, nigga.
Yeah, nigga.
" And then Tyrese crip walks.
And I'm I can only imagine Jimmy at that point in time.
"No, this can't be! "This No! This can't What, are you crazy?" Crazy.
It was like, "What is this? How can this possibly be the case?" We start off this Friday morning with some California love.
Newswoman: Hip-hop mogul and headphone tycoon, Dr.
Dre, boasting in a video on Facebook with friend Tyrese Gibson.
The biggest deal in its history, - and hip-hop's first billionaire.
- (camera clicks) Newswoman: The selling price, rumored to be a whopping $3.
2 billion.
Think about it.
Apple known for discretion in its deals, and (laughs) and then, you know, there's, like, a Facebook page with a victory lap by Dr.
Dre.
Gene Munster: I can't imagine what the legal departments were doing - when they saw that video.
- (laughs) This I just a bad deal.
"Yes, hello? This is Apple.
"Oh, you niggas want to talk early, huh? - Take a few yeah, take a couple off.
" - (stifled laughter) "Yeah, take a couple off, nigga.
Shut up, nigga.
It ain't inked yet.
" I had been wanting to work with Apple at that point, it's probably 10 years, maybe more than 10 years.
And I'm like, "How could this be possibly happening?" So, sure, I thought the deal could blow.
I think, you know, for Jimmy, who had to bear the brunt of it I'm sure it was not a good two or three days.
And I felt bad for him, 'cause he was getting he was getting the crap knocked out of him, and he was responsible to all the shareholders to make that deal go through.
He was crushed.
And when he told me when I finally talked to him, he was like "We could potentially lose this.
" You know? And he says "But it's the horse I rode in with.
" Dr.
Dre: I was actually in the studio, excitement was in the room.
You mix excitement with a fucking fifth of alcohol, man, something terrible is bound to happen.
That is in the top three of most embarrassing moments in my life.
- (rain pattering) - (thunder rumbling) Sometimes things like this happen.
And I'm so secluded, I'm so private.
At the same time, I want to have fun, I want to party, and I want to make my music and that whole shit.
But it, you know As far as, um along with cameras around me, like this along with cameras in my studio, around my family, in my home around any fucking thing that I'm doing that I really give a fuck about.
Well, I'm at a place with it right now where I'm comfortable enough to let these things go and to talk about these things.
(thunder rumbles) Okay, God, give us a lightning strike, but keep it out there.
(laughter) (thunder crashes) (thunder crashing) - (whirs) - (grunts) (dramatic music playing) - (chattering) - (feedback) (siren blares) (crowd cheers) (siren blares) (gun fires) You're about to hear what many people consider obscene language and ideas that are offensive.
They are also popular.
(music fades) (people chattering) All right.
- Hey, hey.
- You get the video, man.
- Question: How ya doing? - Hey, hey.
- Question: Good to see ya, brother.
- What's happening? What's up? How you doing, man? (people chattering) Big time movie making, man.
Man: When he comes in, then that's when y'all try to light Man 2: So, guys, show of hands in this back corner, who'll be smoking a cigarette.
Corey Hawkins, a.
k.
a.
, Dr.
Dre.
(laughs) - You know.
- (laughs) (indiscernible dialog on computer) (door closes) Dr.
Dre: Sitting on the set, watching myself being portrayed in a movie is just fucking weird, man.
Man (on monitor): Get the fuck off, man! Get the fuck off me, man! Fuck off me, man! Fuck off! Dr.
Dre: I've had such a traumatic career, but such a fortunate career at the same time.
It seems like these artists that I've worked with are fucking angels to me, you know? They always come in at the right time.
As far as me and Jimmy goes, - we're just some lucky motherfuckers, man.
- (phone rings) Here's Dr.
Dre.
Hello, Dr.
Dre.
Question: First of all, what is he making right now? I'm not interviewing fucking Dre.
- Question: I know you're not interviewing him.
- (Dr.
Dre laughs) Iovine: I always felt that I had to work harder than the next guy - just to do as well as the next guy.
- (applause) And to do better than the next guy, I had to just kill.
Newsman: Jimmy Iovine, the music executive, has worked with everyone from Bruce Springsteen to Lady Gaga, but his partnership with Dr.
Dre is creating the most business buzz these days.
What kind of numbers can you give us on how quickly this business has grown? And has it grown faster than you thought it would? Well, of course it's grown faster than we thought it would.
Iovine: So what happened was, Apple stays true to who I always knew they were, kept their word, ignored all the noise, and made the deal.
Landau: There is this thing called the American dream, and we know it's a myth.
It only applies to very few people.
But Jimmy's one of those people who has not only succeeded, but has become a better person in the process.
(laughter) Tom Petty: He's a scrapper, man.
I mean, he came from Hell's Kitchen.
He's persistent.
This motherfucker is, like He's a different type of motherfucker.
Jimmy has this brute law state.
It can appear rude.
Lots of people don't like him, but brutal honesty is why you want him in the room.
Of course, it's all driven by his low self-esteem.
I mean, but so are we all, you know? - (laughter) - And our visions of grandiosity, you know, on top of that.
What else is there? (laughs) Paul Rosenberg: Jimmy's the guy firing a million ideas a minute, and Dre is looking at those ideas, using this Dr.
Dre bullshit detector that is the best in the world.
Jimmy Iovine is the levitator.
Dre is the innovator.
Rosenberg: They produce each other.
(camera clicks) - (seagulls cawing) - (waves crashing) (rock music playing) Monkey see, monkey do, I don't know why I'd rather be dead than cool, I don't know why Every line ends in rhyme, I don't know why Less is more, love is blind, I don't know why Stay, stay away Stay away, stay away Give an inch, take a smile, I don't know why Fashion shits, fashion style Yo, I'm starting to sweat right now just listening to this shit.
This is bananas.
Nirvana, Kurt Cobain, that's, uh my favorite rock group of all time.
Here's a a little bit of Kraftwerk, "Metal on Metal," live.
(music playing) Dr.
Dre: I was born in Compton, two weeks after my mother's 16th birthday.
A lot of shit went on with my father.
He's smart as shit, but crazy as shit, too.
Very abusive, physically and, uh, verbally.
A lot of drugs.
And he was out of the picture before I could talk, you know? But the violence that was going on, it was just normal.
(helicopter whupping) Police dispatcher (on radio): Unit 13-80-61, 13-80-61, drive-by shooting, confirm one victim down.
53-18 South Main.
Man (on radio): Here you go.
I knew it was gonna happen, 'cause this is a Saturday night, it's terribly warm, the moon's out, and the gangs are already starting to shoot.
Dr.
Dre: Compton, especially where and when I grew up, it was going down.
Newsman: More than 70,000 gang members live in Los Angeles County.
Violence can erupt any time.
Dr.
Dre: Because my mother was having a kid at such a young age, people were telling her, her life isn't gonna be shit.
Her son's life isn't gonna be shit.
So I can remember my entire youth, my mom banging in my head that I had to be a success at something.
Verna Griffin: I used it as a tool.
It made me strive to do better.
Dr.
Dre: She's one of the strongest people I know.
Bill Kurtis: Compton was the American dream.
Sunny California.
Temptingly close to the Los Angeles ghetto in the '50s and '60s, it became the black American dream.
But the dream has turned sour.
They have been unable to solve the problems of crime and growing welfare, which is slowly turning suburban Compton into an extension of the black inner city.
Bill Kurtis, CBS News, Compton, California.
Yeah, I mean, if you know anything about hip-hop or the history of hip-hop, you know that melody.
It's like late '70s, early '80s, Kraftwerk was a big inspiration for a lot of hip-hop artists back then, you know? When hip-hop was really starting from the ground floor.
So, you know, they're definitely one of my inspirations.
(clicks) Griffin: I think it was born in him, the music.
- He liked noise.
- (music playing) He's always been like that.
When he was a baby, you just put him somewhere near a speaker, and he'd just lay there and kind of looked in the air like he's searching for the notes, the sounds, and stuff.
- Man: Hey, what's happening? - Man 2: Hey, Tommy.
(chattering) We always had the house that everybody would congregate.
There was always parties and dancing.
Griffin: When company would come over, Andre would be the little DJ.
Dr.
Dre: Before I could read, if there was a song that I knew everybody liked, I just knew what that label looked like, so I would stack up 10 45s in the order that I saw fit.
Griffin: He'd just stack 'em up and play them.
I'm in for real, baby Gonna keep movin' Dr.
Dre: My relationship with my stepfather was up and down.
My second husband, same crazy problems, abuse and all that stuff.
Dr.
Dre: I saw my share of violence.
My mom tried to keep me away from that as much as possible, so I was to myself quite a bit.
And my brother Tyree became my best friend.
We were three years apart, and, um, this is the person that I really knew, and this person knew everything about me.
But I don't want to get into that.
I don't want to get into Tyree right now.
Yeah.
Moving down the line Griffin: Tyree, he just idolized his brother.
And, um, Andre was just really quiet, - a thinker.
He was very smart.
- Just like I want you Want you to get down, baby When I get down, when I get down with you Yes, darling, oh, ooh - (music stops) - By the way, I'm never gonna be able to do it any better than what they did.
It's the This is just my version.
(men vocalizing) Yeah, I gotta spend some time on this shit, but like, seriously - I want you - being able to go in and touch these vocals, - I want you the right way - especially the tracks of a song not only that I grew up on, a track that I really love.
- But I want you to want me too - Man.
It's motherfucking chill bumps, man.
It's just This is crazy.
I, uh, uh, uh Yah, yah, yah, uh, uh, uh I want you, babe Can't you see? (moaning) I (vocalizing) Woo! Yeah! - I - (laughs) Yo, we're really doing this shit, man.
Ah! Janet Mormile: Jimmy Iovine, my little brother.
We used to call him "the guy who fell to Earth," because he was so unlike anyone else.
Iovine: I was born in Red Hook, Brooklyn, in 1953.
My grandparents came from Italy.
And my mother's father, he was a longshoreman.
My dad went to work down at the piers as well as a longshoreman.
There wasn't a lot of talk about being a doctor or a lawyer, but I was a very fortunate guy, you know? I had a mother and father that loved me a lot, and my sister, and my grandmother, and my aunts, and my uncles.
Mormile: I don't know how old he was when he started walking.
He never had to, because my mother and I would do everything for him.
And then, of course, we were so worried when he started school.
(camera clicks) I don't remember one moment of high school that I enjoyed.
Catholic school, nuns, suits, jacket, tie, no girls, all guys.
I hated every second of it.
I would make his tie every morning.
I hated it.
I used to have a lot of trouble reading.
And I would do his homework.
I was below average.
- I wanted to get out of school.
- (bell rings) So, I bought a guitar, 14 to 16 was my band.
And we would all go to these dinky, little dark places.
Couple of really nice clubs in New York City.
Mormile: You should never put the lights on in places like this.
Iovine: We were rock stars or something.
- Mormile: He was amazing.
- Iovine: We weren't very good.
And that's when frustration first set in, you know? Like, "Oh, okay, this is this is tough.
" They're not gonna ask you to join The Rolling Stones.
So then I was thinking not what I was gonna do, I was thinking what I wasn't gonna do, 'cause my father had plans for me to go down to the docks, where he had a job for me, you know? I I'm just I wanted to do something that felt special.
Dr.
Dre: Yeah, it was really interesting, and most people I bumped into still don't know what their real passion is, whereas I was really blessed to find hip-hop.
Griffin: At a early age, Andre had a focus.
- Focus, baby, focus - Dre, Dre, Dre Griffin: At first, it was dancing, the Freak Patrol.
Damn, Freak Patrol.
You're taking me back now, okay.
- He had it together.
- It was terrible, - and I'm actually embarrassed - (record scratches) talking about that shit right now, man.
Griffin: I would always say, "You can't get no job pop locking.
You need to find you a job.
" And he was always coming in second.
And I remember him saying that he needed to do something that he could be first in.
Dr.
Dre: There was a club in the neighborhood called Eve After Dark.
One of my uncles was a bouncer at this club, and he snuck me in one night.
Kurtis Blow was performing, and his little brother, Davy DMX, was the DJ.
(record scratching) This is the first time in my life that I saw scratching.
Just fucked me up.
I knew that this was my calling.
There was a friend of mine, he put together two turntables, and he used a balance knob to be able to go from turntable to turntable.
I started doing this thing, and I just fell in love with it.
Man: All right, are you ready to go off? Well, check it out.
Right about now, Dr.
Dre is on the wheels, and I'm about to cold tear shit up.
Woman: Here we go.
Here we go.
Dr.
Dre: Whenever I was home, I was practicing.
My mother was really happy about it, because When you can hear them, you know where they're at.
Dr.
Dre: Christmas, my mom bought me a Numark 1150 mixer.
I have the ability to make tapes now.
One of the best gifts I ever got in my life.
Griffin: We lived a couple of blocks from Eric Eazy-E.
Dr.
Dre: One of the first time that I performed for an audience was in Eazy-E's backyard after a block party.
- Next thing I know - All the children all the kids in the neighborhood were coming over to my house to get their tape.
I would shout your name out on the tape, or you could talk on your own tape.
This is the first way I started hustling and making money.
Griffin: And it just grew.
You could just see it just growing.
And he's just, like, soaking it in, wanting more.
All day, he was in that room.
I'd go in there, and I could hear the music blasting.
He asleep with the headphones on.
I just took 'em off.
I didn't know how to turn anything off.
- (music fades) - (crickets chirping) Newsman: Of course we're talking about Dr.
Dre.
He started N.
W.
A.
, remember that? Now he's taking his success and a lot of his money to build a new academy with music mogul Jimmy Iovine, who donated about $70 million together to foster entrepreneurship that brings students entertainment, technology, and business skills over at USC.
It's amazing.
He doesn't have a college degree, but yet he has an academy with his name on it.
Newswoman: Yeah, it's fantastic.
Iovine: To all of today's graduates I can't imagine what's going through your minds right now.
I never had the opportunity to go to a great university like this.
I didn't get here today like you did, by studying hard and excelling in school.
Yet, here I stand before you - at this amazing crossroads in your life.
- (cheering) Iovine: When I graduated high school, my mother and father said, "You have to go to college.
" (helicopter whupping) I said, "No kidding," because the draft.
- I knew if I hated high school - (explosions) I was really gonna hate Vietnam.
So they accepted me in John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
I thought it sounded good, like maybe that's what Alfred was in Batman.
Like, I had no idea.
Maybe I was dyslexic.
I don't want to find out now 'cause that'd only rock the boat.
Things are kind of good.
But this was the first time somebody said, "You're a nice kid.
You need to go do something else.
" Mormile: So he would stay up in his room and listen to music for hours on end.
Iovine: I read the back of album covers.
I learned about producing.
That's so cool.
He would make you a super fan of whatever he was a fan of.
"Do you hear that sound? And do you know why you hear that sound?" And he wanted to try the music business.
Iovine: And I met, through my cousin, this incredible songwriter, Ellie Greenwich, who got me my first studio job.
Mormile: Jimmy got a job sweeping out the studio, but somehow he got fired from sweeping.
She got me another job, and I had 90-day trial.
- On the 89th day - He got fired.
You get a kid a job and he gets fired, you're not gonna get him another job.
So on the way home, I called Ellie Greenwich.
She said, "Don't get on the train.
Go down to the Record Plant.
" And it turns out there were these two Italian guys.
And this guy, Roy Cicala, who owned the studio, was a really groundbreaking recording engineer.
And how he would teach you was to work through you.
And we just hit it off.
He sits you at the console, and he'd say, "Give me a compressor on the vocal, "2 dB at 10,000 cycles.
No, try three.
No, two sounds better.
" And as you're turning the knob, you're hearing the vocal get brighter.
(echoing) Or you put the echo on, the tape delay, and you actually hear it.
He goes, "No, that's too much.
(echo stops) "Have it all right, slow the tape machine up a little bit.
(deep voice) Okay, do you hear why that's working?" (normal voice) And you get a feel for how to make a record, because I didn't have any skills.
And then one day, Roy called me at home.
- (bells ringing) - It was Easter Sunday, and he said, "I need you to come in today to answer the phones.
" Went to my mother.
I said, "Mom, I gotta go to work.
" She said, "Are you crazy? It's Easter Sunday.
"Your family's coming over.
Your aunts, your uncles, "all your cousins are coming here.
We have to go to church.
We have to" (train clacking) So, I went into work, and when I got there I went, "Okay.
" Roy said, "I just wanted to see "if you would come in on Easter Sunday.
"The assistant engineer can't make it, and John and I want you to do it.
" Ain't no people on the Iovine: Like anyone from my generation, ground zero was The Beatles.
- The Beatles! - (crowd screaming) Iovine: I was just plain old terrified.
I was in way above my head, but my father was a real cheerleader.
He always told me that every room you go into is better 'cause you're there.
So I never felt like nobody wants me here or I don't belong.
Fear's a powerful thing.
I mean, it's got a lot of firepower.
And that was the beginning of making fear a tailwind instead of a headwind.
Old dirt road Mormile: That was the beginning.
He went from sweeping the floors to working the board with John Lennon.
It made him believe, you know, "If John Lennon thinks I can do it, I really can.
" Iovine: That's when I graduated to second engineer, Easter Sunday, 1973.
- (helicopter whirring) - (music stops) - This is where I leave you - (guns firing) - Carry you - (people screaming) - Carry you - (sirens approaching) In the city of Compton This is where I leave you Dr.
Dre: I like being in the control room.
I like sitting behind those buttons.
That's my comfort area.
That's where I fought to remain, right in front of those buttons.
I never considered myself a rapper.
I still don't necessarily like the way I sound on the Mic.
And it's a hell of a career choice for a person with all these issues.
(music stops) - (grunts) - What up? Ice Cube: Dre is still one of the most confident dudes I know.
Anybody that go in the studio with Dre I don't care if they're in there one session a month the session with Dre is the session that you will pull from the most.
You know my name, you know my reputation Survive through the time, you know my name You know my reputation Dr.
Dre: That's all I need.
That's good.
Rock with the whole line, though.
Survive through the time, you know my name You know my reputation - You know what it is - I think that's money.
Moolah.
Me and Dre, you don't like it, you can lay Ice Cube: At the time I met him, he was Dr.
Dre, - one of the best DJs in LA.
- Back then the DJ was the man.
Today was a good day Man (on PA): Anybody ever been to a videotaping before? - (scattered cheers) - Man: Huh? Who is the DJ? That's the new guy we got.
We call him Dr.
Dre.
All right.
Dr.
Dre - let it rip.
- (scratching) Alonzo Williams: This is the entrance to the Eve After Dark.
This was a teenage night club, 1979.
This was where it all started.
Mirrors on the wall.
On a good Saturday night, if it was packed, the mirrors would sweat like it was raining out.
And the ceiling would get hot and moist, and they'd start to sag.
And we built a stage out front so that Yella - Man: Yella.
- Williams: could be seen.
- It was just off the chain.
- (camera clicking) DJ Yella: Wreckin' Cru we were a crew of DJs, and we had it going on.
We were just hot.
But we was always every weekend for a couple of years.
- Dr.
Dre: Alonzo was the club owner.
- Williams: I was the big dog.
Dr.
Dre: That was the guy that you wanted to know if you wanted to DJ.
Williams: One of my boys on the cleanup crew, kept on "Hey, man, you wanna hear my boy Dre?" I'm like, "Well, I got enough DJs.
I got four DJs already.
- (siren passes) - "I don't need no fucking more DJs.
" (people chattering) Dr.
Dre: At that time, my whole mission was to get on the turntables.
I didn't give a fuck about anything else that was going on in the club.
I wasn't tripping on no girls, nothing.
I wanted to be able to get in there and rock, and Alonzo used to always be standing out in front of the club.
Williams: 'Cause the club was technically 18 and over.
- (distant siren) - And I tried to keep it that way.
Him and Eazy came up.
They wasn't dressed right.
So, I like, "No, no, no, no.
" Dre started talking to me.
You know, Dre's a smooth-talking motherfucker, okay? So I said, "Look, man, change clothes.
Come back and see me next week.
" Dre changed clothes.
Eazy didn't.
So, just to piss Eazy off, I let Dre in, made Eazy's ass stand outside.
And how Dre got on the turntables if you waterboarded my ass, I couldn't tell you.
'Cause all I know is, Eazy's talking shit to me downstairs, "You Jheri-curled motherfucker.
" I had a perm.
I had Jheri curl, whatever it was back then.
And I came in, like, "What the fuck is going on?" Please, Mr.
Postman, look and see - Whoa, yeah - Is there a letter in your bag for me? Williams: Understand this, we never put two different tempos with each other.
Dre was the first person I'd ever heard do that, and people stopped dancing to look.
There must be some word today, yeah From my boyfriend so far away DJ Yella: "Mr.
Postman" and "Jive Rhythm Tracks 122.
" Putting the old '60s song onto the new song - caught everybody off-guard.
- It was like some musical, magical shit.
- Oh, oh, oh, oh - (scratching) People were still grooving.
They was grooving confused, though.
Please, Mr.
Postman I know why they confused.
I'm confused my damn self.
That was one of the most famous mixes I've ever heard.
First time he DJ'd in the club.
Right there on the stage right here.
Right there.
Griffin: This particular night, I went to pick him up, And he wouldn't stop talking.
"Man, the crowd was going wild.
" And then the manager drives up and says, "How would you like a job?" (laughs) Dr.
Dre: That was a great night for me.
From that point, me and Yella became really good friends.
DJ Yella: Once we met, me and Dre were like Batman and Robin.
Oh, you better Dr.
Dre: Wreckin Cru was a traveling show also.
It was just genuine good fun, man.
- Innocent.
- Wait a minute, Mr.
Postman Please check it and see just one more time for me - You gotta - (music continues) I actually got some turntables last year.
They're still in a box.
(laughs) - Question: When's the last time? - In public? - Shit.
I'm twenty years? - Just for fun.
- Gotta dust 'em off.
- Man: Word.
- (laughs) - Absolutely.
Man: We want to put together a show designed by yourself that says what you want to say, i.
e.
takes people as far back to the history of it as you want to go, but also as up-to-date with the new stuff as you want to go.
We believe that shows like yours need to be on every other week.
So what we have here is we're looking across the week from Monday to Thursday.
That's all of that.
Look for the lines.
A good horizontal in a radio schedule means good clarity.
Can't you just tell me what happened? - (laughter) - I can tell you what happened.
(chatter, laughter) Iovine: When I was growing up, the way people worked, you had no choice but to work really hard or you get fired.
And you couldn't wait for it to end.
- Hi, Don.
- (chattering) Bruce Springsteen: You had two kinds of guys we ran into at that time.
There were the kinds of guys that wanted to go home at five o'clock, and their interest in what you were doing didn't exceed the normal demands of the day for them.
And those guys never lasted.
Because when you're trying to push the boundaries on things and when you're moving into different types of frontiers, you need to be surrounded by people who really believe in what you're doing.
Iovine: And I had never witnessed anything like that before.
I had never understood that.
Everything I ever did in my life, I wanted to stop doing it.
- (distortion) - (tape fluttering) Iovine.
'Cause I couldn't hear myself in the damn headphones.
- What else is new? - (man chuckles) (distortion) Iovine: Bruce taught me a work ethic.
Springsteen: In 1975, we're trying to make "Born to Run," and we're having great difficulty doing so.
(people chattering) Springsteen: Walked into the Record Plant.
This was our first step inside a professional recording studio.
A skinny, little Italian kid, sitting at the tape machine.
Basic job was to take the tape on and off, push the stop and start button.
That was Jimmy Iovine.
He came with the furniture.
Iovine: I did come with the furniture.
(laughter) Iovine: And I came in a few nights later, and our engineer was gone.
Landau looked to me and said, "Can you do this?" And I wasn't really sure if I could do it or not, but I said, "Yeah, why not?" And that was my first solo flight.
Springsteen: We gotta stay cool tonight, Eddie 'Cause man, we got ourselves out on that line And if we blow this one They ain't gonna be looking for just me this time Landau: Bruce is a whole other story.
The center of what he's doing is to try and create an artistic vision.
There was an intellectual aspect to it.
Springsteen: We were just very, very determined.
So, I suppose if you were new to our club, the relentless pursuit of your idea would have probably exhausted you.
(distortion) But it was simply understood that you're there because you believe what we're doing is worth it.
And my job was to make sure that it was.
One, two! Landau: Bruce used to have this thing where he simply lost track of time.
A lot of experimenting going on.
Sometimes we would really seem like we were spinning our wheels.
We worried every little detail to death.
Springsteen: No, I think we spent three weeks - trying to get drum sounds - Man: Here we go, here we go.
which is indulgent, but sometimes you need to be indulged.
Iovine: Bruce would stand over me, say one word over and over again.
"Stick.
" - Springsteen: Which became shorthand for - Stick.
not hearing resonance and size and power.
- Stick.
- Iovine: I couldn't hear anymore.
The speakers were so loud for so many days, - and I was getting overwhelmingly tired.
- Springsteen: Stick.
Landau: Jimmy would get impatient.
And all of us, including Bruce, would be feeling that.
But I wasn't saying, "I'm sorry," to anybody that I was dragging through the mill.
Iovine: Coffee wasn't working anymore.
- Coca-Cola wasn't working anymore.
- Springsteen: Stick.
Springsteen: There were hours when he would simply fall asleep at the sound board.
(laughs) - Stick.
- You'd give him a nudge, he would wake up.
Iovine: It was brutal.
Springsteen: The engineer would take the blame, and I was not above laying it upon him until we got our sounds.
Iovine: It's a stick hitting a drum.
- Stick.
Stick.
Stick.
- Three weeks.
- Stick.
Stick.
Stick.
Stick.
- Landau: So when I'd get him alone, I said, "Jimmy, "stay in the fucking saddle.
You don't get thrown.
" I said, "Landau, I'm done.
I quit.
" (drum playing) I said, "I'm done.
This guy "I kill myself for this guy, I work really hard, "and I do everything I possibly can.
And it's it's it's unacceptable.
" He said, "Calm down.
" I said, "Jimmy, you're missing the big picture.
"What are we here for? "We are here to help Bruce "make the best record he can.
That's the job.
"We're not here to make you happy.
"We're not here to make me happy.
"We're here to contribute to the project.
And it's Bruce's project.
" Iovine: He said, "If you go back in and say to Bruce, "'I'm here to support you.
This is not about me.
"It's about the album," "you will have a friend for the rest of your life, and you'll have learned a big lesson.
" "That's the big picture, right?" I said, "Yes, it is.
" (cheering) In the day we sweat it out on the streets Of a runaway American dream At night we ride Through mansions of glory In suicide machines Sprung from cages Iovine: Everybody on that album bonded.
You never forget your first experiences like that, and I learned so much.
Whoa! Iovine: And then having it come out and be blown around and be on the cover of Time and Newsweek.
And it was just an incredible, incredible experience.
'Cause tramps like us Baby, we were born to run Whoa (vocalizing) Yeah, yeah Iovine: Everybody won.
The studio was telling me how terrific it is.
And it's number one.
And, you know, it's a big deal to somebody who's 23 years old, I guess, right? So I was really feeling myself, you know? (laughs) What I call "breathing my own exhaust.
" - (song ends) - (cheers, applause) Williams: World Class Wreckin Cru made several records.
See, records are like children.
You never met a mother with a ugly baby, okay? I never had a flop.
They just wasn't as popular as the other ones, okay? Man: Records.
Mixer.
Turntables.
Speakers.
Williams: Right now, you in my backyard.
We call it Lonzoland.
That's the studio.
Everybody came through here at one point in time.
Ice Cube: And we were all learning on the fly.
Yella would read instructions, and Dre was like, "What do I do next?" "Uh, hit 'start' and press the metridome at the same time.
" That's how we learned how to mix, and Dre was a perfectionist.
Always a step ahead of everybody.
Ice Cube: Dre wanted to do hip-hop, but Alonzo had him doing slow jams and fast music.
Yeah, "Surgery," it to be perfectly honest with you you know what, I I I don't want to say anything bad about that record, you know? It was my opening.
But, um yeah, it was The record was corny as fuck, you know what I mean? It's (singing along) Dr.
Dre, Dr.
Dre (both singing along) Dr.
Dre, Dr.
Dre D-Dre, Dre, D-Dre, Dre, Dre, Dre Williams: World Class Wreckin Cru made several records.
We had to do what we had to do at that time.
This was no bullshit, okay? Dre, Dre, Dre, Dre, Dre, Dre We some pretty motherfuckers.
We colorful.
That was in the Prince days.
We was a decent-looking group.
I was the lead keyboard holder.
Holder.
I didn't play the motherfucker.
I just held it.
(laughs) Bom Williams: There was too much pussy around us not to be on stage.
I'm not stupid, okay? (vocalizing) We had more orgies at my house - (breathing heavily) - after-parties.
Remember that shit, Dre? Remember Cathy? - Motherfucker, you remember that? - Shit! - (water bubbling) - (music fading) (water dripping) Williams: The Wreckin Cru went up, peaked a little bit, then it was coming down.
The music, the clothing.
I had to go get me a job valeting cars.
Dr.
Dre: I felt like I was being suffocated.
You know, respect is very high on the list of my priorities.
I have to know that you respect me and I respect you.
The way I operate is completely on how I feel.
- (rock music playing) - How do you make me feel? How does this record make me feel? How does this environment make me feel? If it makes me feel fucked up, I'm outta here.
Slow ride Take it easy Iovine: The first project I produced, Foghat, I did it for the money.
At the time, you got paid three points to be a producer, and their last album sold four million.
So I immediately said, "At 20 cents a record, that's $800,000.
" I'm getting $10 an hour as an engineer.
I'm like, "I'm in.
" And I wasn't ready.
It was the wrong kind of music for me.
I mean, I brought my girlfriend to some of the sessions, you know what I mean? I was like I was a knucklehead.
I wasn't good yet.
They were great and really talented, but I was not doing my job right, and I got fired.
And I remember feeling like, "Oh my God! I'm gonna be embarrassed to my friends, my family.
" They're gonna say, "Oh my God, he got fired.
" You automatically think that everybody's paying attention to your life, which is complete bullshit.
(train rattling) So I went back to the Record Plant, 'cause that was the only place I really felt safe.
I knew myself in the Record Plant.
And I walk in, and Patti Smith is there.
Patti was really ground zero for punk music her, the Ramones, you know? Great poet and really respected.
She was around on "Born to Run.
" I used to see her in the hallway and stuff, you know? And she thought I was working really hard, (laughs) 'cause I was working really hard.
And she says, "I want you to produce my album.
" And I said, "Well, you know, I just got fired from this gig.
" And she goes, "Whatever.
" Patti Smith: I didn't care whether he was liked by Foghat.
He made an impression on me immediately.
If Bruce wasn't there working, he would stay for hours and study other people's mixes, other albums.
He'd find some old tape to see if he could improve that.
He worked all the time.
Iovine: I said to myself, "No fun, no life, no nothing.
You're gonna give up everything and put a hundred percent into this.
" That's the kind of guy I wanted.
Landau: So Jimmy, unbeknownst to us, is working with Patti as a producer while he's engineering our record, and she was coming in in the middle of the night.
Smith: I had had a serious accident in the beginning of '77, and I was way behind preparing for the album.
We didn't have a whole lot of songs.
Iovine: We didn't have a single to get you into the album.
Landau: Now, Bruce had this song that was not quite at the center of the album that he was making, but he suspected that if it was on there, that might be the focus.
He didn't want it.
I really don't know to this day how Jimmy wangled this song out of Bruce.
Springsteen: He took me out to Coney Island for a drive, and somehow he let slip, "Hey, I'm producing now.
" "Great.
" "You know that song, 'Because the Night'?" "Yes, I do.
" "Are you gonna use it?" "No, I don't think I am.
" "Do you mind if I give it to Patti Smith?" "Bruce, this song w I mean, we "how could we give how could we pass on this song being on your album? Are you crazy?" He says, "Yeah, but, you know, it's" So, I brought it to Patti.
"Would you listen to it? Maybe you wanna, you know, collaborate.
" And I was like, "Jimmy, you know, I only want to write my own songs.
" So I took this cassette, I went back to my little apartment, and I put it on the mantle and then forgot about it.
Even now it makes me laugh.
Every day I come to the studio, he wouldn't say hello to me.
He'd say, "Did you listen to the song? Listen to the song?" I said, "Eh, I didn't listen to it yet.
" "Should we go back to your apartment, listen to this song?" For days, "Did you listen to the song?" At that time, I was building a romance with my future husband, Fred "Sonic" Smith, and he lived in Detroit, so I only got to talk to him once a week.
I'm home, and I'm waiting for Fred to call.
7:30 comes.
He doesn't call.
Eight o'clock comes.
I was getting really agitated.
And I noticed the tape sitting on the mantle, and I thought, "Oh, I'll listen to that darn song.
" Take me now, baby Here as I am Pull me close Try and understand I put it on, and it's flawlessly produced, great chorus.
It's in my key.
It's anthemic.
Come on now Try and understand The way I feel So Fred finally calls me, like, almost midnight.
- Take my hand - But by midnight, I had written all the lyrics.
"Have I doubt, when I'm alone, love is a ring, the telephone.
" I was waiting for Fred.
Because the night belongs to lovers Because the night belongs to love Because the night belongs to lovers Because the night Belongs to love The next day, Jimmy goes "Did you listen to the song?" I said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
" "What'd you think?" "I wrote lyrics to it.
" "What? Where are they?" In, like, two days, we recorded it.
Landau: Now, Bruce had accomplished a great deal by then.
One thing he hadn't had was a top 10 single.
Pop! Landau: We hadn't finished with Darkness, so while Jimmy is engineering our album, this comes out, and the single goes to top 10.
Springsteen: There is the talent of Jimmy Iovine.
He eases in, and in his very slippery way, greases all the wheels so things happen at a certain moment.
And Jimmy Iovine works his magic.
So exciting.
I mean, I'd walk down the street in the Village, in New York, and it would be coming out of boom boxes or every record store.
In fact, I got flack for that, because people were saying, "Oh, you know, you sold out.
You're a punk rocker, and you have a hit song.
" And I said, "Punk rock is about freedom.
"It's not about your chart position.
And I'll sing any fucking song I want.
" - (vocalizes) - (music stops) - (traffic sounds) - (cars honking) Smith: It wasn't that Jimmy wanted to be the number one guy.
It was like he was ambitious for you.
And, uh he was ambitious for me.
You always felt that his whole goal was for the world to see what he was seeing.
(cars honking) - Dr.
Dre: Wow.
- Woman: It's beautiful.
- Dr.
Dre: Iovine.
- Iovine: Yes, sir.
- (Dr.
Dre laughs) - Good idea, right? Dr.
Dre: This is nutso.
Iovine: See that roundish building over there? Like, the end of this block, it sort of curves at the end? - When I was 23 years old - Dr.
Dre: Yeah.
I had an apartment in that building.
- Really? - It was - Overlooking the park? - Yep, it was $1,400 a month.
(laughs) Shit.
- Times have changed.
(laughs) - Yeah.
$1,400 a month, right now Springsteen: You know, people become successful, and they get locked into the behaviors that led them to be a success.
Jimmy was very, very good at letting go of the things that might have made him a success to this point.
He's willing to shed that and go for something completely else, and not afraid to partner with other very visionary people.
So, Jimmy's career is based on a tremendous lack of fear of moving forward.
Dr.
Dre: It was scary for me, leaving the group, 'cause I was separating myself from this thing that taught me everything I knew up till then, and just taking that little bit of knowledge that I had and trying to go off on my own and create something entirely new.
But I knew I had this talent, and I knew I gotta just step up, be my own man, so I took the gamble.
But I was limited on equipment, and the only person I knew that had money at that time was Eazy.
He was selling drugs, and, you know.
Man: He was a hustler.
Ice Cube: Eazy had money.
Eazy wanted to get into the music business, to be a label owner.
Dr.
Dre: So, me and Eazy, we decided to start a label called Ruthless Records.
And I wanted to do something for the streets, something that the guys in the park were gonna be able to relate to, 'cause New York had everything covered as far as hip-hop.
But West Coast hip-hop in '86 was pretty much nonexistent, so I convinced Cube to write a song for us.
And I wrote "Boyz-n-the-Hood" for him.
Dr.
Dre: Los Angeles has a car culture.
If you didn't have subwoofers in your car, you wasn't shit.
That's what made me start paying attention to sonics and clarity.
And when we did "Boyz-n-the-Hood," I wanted to make sure that those subwoofers were working.
It was so powerful, your jaw dropped.
Dr.
Dre: I'm much better and much more comfortable directing an artist than being an artist myself, and Eazy had this creative part about him that was just so street.
So I decided, "I'm gonna talk Eazy into recording this record.
" He looked at me like I was nuts.
He kept saying, "I'm not a rapper.
I've never rapped before in my life.
" But I had a baby at the time.
I needed money.
I was determined to get him to do this song.
I had no idea how it was gonna come out.
As a matter of fact, I didn't think it was gonna work, but I spent two hours talking him into getting on the microphone.
And finally, he makes me turn the lights off, he puts on dark glasses, and we got started.
- (music ends) - (tape player clicks) (whirring, clicks) (clicks) Cruisin down the street in my six-fo' Jocking the bitches, slapping the hoes Went to the park to get the scoop Knuckleheads out there cold, shooting some hoops A car pulls up, who can it be? A fresh El Camino rolling, Kilo G He rolled down his window, and he started to say It's all about making that GTA 'Cause the boys in the hood are always hard You come talking that trash, we'll pull your card Knowin nothin' in life but to be legit Don't quote me, boy, 'cause I ain't said shit Yo, man (record scratching) Yo, man Yo, yo, yo, man Yo, man, yo, man, yo, man Man: Get the fuck out! Pump that, pump that Pump, pump, pump, pump Pump, pump, pump that Pump that, pump that Man: Motherfucker say what? Eazy-E: Donald B's in the place To give me the pace He said my man JD Is on freebase The boy JD was a friend of mine Till I caught him in my car Trying to steal a Alpine Chased him up the street To call a truce The silly motherfucker Pulls out a deuce-deuce Little did he know I had a loaded 12-gauge One sucker dead LA Times, front page 'Cause the boys in the hood are always hard You come talking that trash We'll pull your card Knowin nothin' in life But to be legit Don't quote me, boy 'Cause I ain't said shit Yo, Leroy Yo, yo, yo, yo, Leroy Yo, Leroy, yo, yo, yo, yo, Leroy Yo, Leroy, yo, Leroy, yo, Leroy, yo, Leroy (police siren chirps) Beer Dr beer Dr Beer, beer, beer Dr Beer Dr beer Dr Beer drinking, breath stinking Sniffing glue Get, get, get Get, get, get Eazy-E: Yeah, I kicked a little ass.
That was a blast from the past, motherfucker.
Get busy, y'all Y'all, y'all, y'all! (music fades)