On Sunday night, The Defiant Ones, a four-part series chronicling Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine’s dominant partnership and transformation into music moguls, premiered on HBO.
The beginning sequence of the film highlights Iovine and Dre’s deal to sell Beats to Apple for $3.2 billion.
Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre are now very rich men, but that guap didn’t just come from a series of backroom business deals, they each had an eye for talent and turned Dr. Dre’s Aftermath Entertainment into one of the most important hip-hop labels of the late 90s and early 2000s.
Much of this success can be attributed to a white rapper from Detroit named Marshall.
As the story goes, Iovine suggested to Dre that the label sign Eminem in 1998. When Aftermath released Em’s first album on the label, The Slim Shady LP, Dre produced three of the tracks, including the lead single “My Name Is.”
Eminem and Dre became one of the most powerful partnerships in hip-hop. Then in 2002, when Dre added 50 Cent to the label, Aftermath was an unmatched force in the industry.
While Dr. Dre continues his massive success in the industry, beyond simply a label executive and producer, and as one of the most successful entrepreneurs in music history, things have been all quiet on the Shady front for quite some time.
Em’s last project, The Marshall Mathers LP 2, came out in 2013 and the 8 Mile native has remained out of the spotlight.
But according to someone who should know a thing or two, that all might be about to change.
Allen Hughes, director of The Defiant Ones, told Uproxx that Dre and Em are in the lab,
“Dre still records. People don’t know this: Dre records every day. Literally, he’s in there recording songs every day. He’s like Picasso in that way. He’s always painting. Right now he’s producing, in the 11th hour, a track for Eminem’s latest album. So Dre’s still real active in music, you know?”
Well then.
It’s been a minute since Eminem released music that was, well, worth listening to. But if anyone can revive his sound and his career, it’s the Doctor.