Dr. Dre — The Chronic

 «Yo I don't smoke weed or sess / Cause it's known to give a brother brain damage» (Dr. Dre in "Express Yourself", NWA, 1988.)

Andre Young expresses himself in these terms, before changing the history of hip-hop music by releasing an album that will identify him forever with weed, "The Chronic": the title refers to a type of high-quality marijuana. After four intense years, three albums, an EP and several certifications, N.W.A finally disbanded: Ice Cube left the most dangerous group in the world in 1989 due to financial differences, soon being targeted by all the other members, including Dre himself, whose accounts two years later don't add up. The boy sends The D.O.C. and Suge Knight to check the documents, and they discover that a large chunk of the money he was owed never arrived, because the group manager Jerry Heller pocketed them in the dark, as Cube had already tried to warn them. Suge Knight, with his methods, convinces Eazy-E and Jerry Heller to free Dre, The DOC and Michel'e from their contracts with Ruthless: Knight, Dre and The DOC found a new label, Future Shock, then changed into Death Row Records.

Somehow, Suge Knight manages to find the funds to finance the label and in 1992 he starred in the soundtrack of the film "Deep Cover", composed by some of his artists: the homonymous single from the soundtrack is signed by Dr. Dre and Snoop Doggy Dogg, a 20-year-old up and coming rapper from Long Beach, here on his debut, who's a friend of Dre's step-brother, Warren G, both are part of local group 213 along with Nate Dogg. The single is a success and the record is also a good success for being a soundtrack, produced by Solar Records, a label founded by Dick Griffey, fourth founder of Death Row, often forgotten. Part of Dr. Dre's debut album is recorded in the studios of Solar Records. Originally, the album is scheduled to be released under Ruthless Records, shortly before the producer left the label: legally, Dre is still tied to the Eazy-E label, so all the profits from the sales of the record ends up in the coffers of Ruthless Records, without Dre or someone from Death Row being able to do anything about it. The fact is quite ironic, as the label, Eazy-E and Jerry Heller are heavily insulted throughout the record.

Not being a good writer, Dre is aware that he cannot carry out an entire album: he calls Snoop Doggy Dogg to help direct the games, however, still not enough. In his manor in Calabasas, LA, and in the studios of Solar Records, together with musicians Colin Wolfe and Chris Taylor, a whole team of guests gathers who, instead of playing the role of simple and typical casual background actors, become more and more easily the secondary protagonists within this disc: it could be said that this effort is a sort of "36 Chambers" before the Wu-Tang Clan, boasting a dozen different performers. The line-up consists of lead producer Dr. Dre, lead rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg, cousins ​​of Snoop Daz Dillinger, RBX and Nate Dogg, Warren G (more involved in the production side of the record, rather than rapping), The D.O.C. (among the main authors of the lyrics), Kurupt, Lady of Rage (directly from New York) and Jewell, R&B singer who together with Nate Dogg is the soul of the entire project, is one of the most underrated artists within this album. Within about a month in June 1992, this team records the entire project. Being virtually all participants in their debut, the album launches half a dozen successful solo careers (Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Nate Dogg, Warren G, Kurupt, Daz Dillinger), nevertheless, the team of collaborators is often considered as a minor and side part compared to Dre himself and lead rapper Snoop Dogg, especially the women, when part of the success of this effort is them too.

Dre's rapping is forced, he knows he's better as a producer than a rapper, and in order to make up for his technical shortcomings he always puts a chorus of other voices to be supported in the delivery and in the whole track, and goes out of his way to appear the less possible in his album, in fact, there are rarely solo cuts and the record sounds like that of a group. Snoop Dogg immediately takes over the reins of the entire project, both from the point of view of writing — together with Daz and The DOC, he's the author of most of the lyrics — and from the point of view of rapping: he gives the whole project much more swagger and personality, spice up every track even when it's present for a few moments and performs his songs with a lazy, chanting delivery style, with a relaxed, regular and unstoppable flow, technically superior to all the others and many of the hip-hop artists of the period, spitting any bar with indifference, and dominating most of the songs in which he's featured.

The other performers have their own style, but none hold the same appeal as Snoop's voice, which is why the album suffers in the second part, when space is given to the other guys. Most of the cuts are party-like, fluid and simple, celebrating gangbang lifestyles, weed, violence and misogyny: coming on the tail of protests after Rodney King's beating, it also celebrates the LA riots, however, the main themes are related to gangsterism, with excerpts to street, sexual, homophobic, revenge, braggadocio, extravagant passages, about the police and against their rivals. There's exaggerated profanity and violence, but not as much as NWA's latest album: the lyrics are decent, not good, with some casual reflective and socio-conscious lines. They aren't the best lyrics of the period, but they're functional to the rhythms and Dre has a good performance in delivery which partially compensates for the lyrical and technical gaps.

From a production point of view, Dr. Dre takes the George Clinton samples and instead of placing them immediately on the beat, he decides to re-record them with live instrumentation (aided by Chris Taylor and Colin Wolfe), in order to create his own rhythms, combining them with other soul samples and synthesizers: the result is a light, smooth and incredibly melodic sound, which suddenly takes a tense and oblique turn, thanks to heavy synthesizers, but maintains positive and pleasant vibes, unlike most gangsta records. Unlike all previous hip-hop albums, he partially pushes aside sampling and establishes a new era in hip-hop production: his work is untouchable, sleek and tight, clean and crisp, definitively introduces the g-funk sound, changing the genre, establishing a new style of music and redefining the West Coast sound, making gangsta rap more accessible to mainstream radio and MTV.

The record is a huge commercial success: third among pop records (it remains in the top ten for eight months), certified three times platinum by the RIAA, and the three singles extracted get a wide airplay (also thanks to the excellent hooks), "Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang" and "Let Me Ride" each garner one Grammy nomination, with the latter winning the Best Rap Solo Performance award. Its commercial success establishes Dr. Dre as production genial master and accomplished rapper, Snoop Dogg among the best MCs in the game, and fledgling Death Row Records as a major force in the industry, while critics don't all agree, the LP isn't warmly received on the East Coast, and is universally considered a classic only in retrospect.

Timeless masterpiece, it's certainly one of the most influential and important albums in hip-hop, but it's not perfect: beautifully designed and made, it's very smooth despite being slowed down by unnecessary skits, it sweeps away the hippie hip-hop and the political, forcefully relaunching gangsta rap in the game, despite being considered by convention as the last gangsta rap album of the early 1990s.

Rating: 9/10.