Speaker 1: Rivals as a production of I Heart Radio. Hello everyone,
Speaker 1: and welcome to Rivals, the show about music beefs and
Speaker 1: feuds and long simmering resentments between musicians. I'm Steve and
Speaker 1: I'm Jordan's and today we're gonna talk about the defining
Speaker 1: feud of West Coast hip hop dr dre versus Easy.
Speaker 1: It's the battle but tore apart n w A one
Speaker 1: of the most influential ratbacks in history, and sparked a
Speaker 1: distract battle that only ended with easyes tragic AIDS related death.
Speaker 1: But did it ever really end? As Dre goes to
Speaker 1: sleep each night on his pillow stuffed with hundreds, I
Speaker 1: wonder how he really feels about his ex bandmate. And
Speaker 1: this is a fascinating feud to me because at its
Speaker 1: height it really was one of the pettiest and most
Speaker 1: vicious beefs and hip hop history. I mean, you had
Speaker 1: Dre and Easy, these former bandmates who were just terrible
Speaker 1: to each other in public, and then Easy died and
Speaker 1: you could see how remorseful Drey was about all of
Speaker 1: these terrible things that he had said about Easy, and
Speaker 1: also how Drey over the years went on to try
Speaker 1: to essentially rewrite history and make it seem almost like
Speaker 1: there really wasn't ever a few at all, but there
Speaker 1: was Jordan's and we're here to rehash it all. So
Speaker 1: without further ado, let's get into this mess. The story
Speaker 1: of benb really begins with Eric Wright a k A. Easy,
Speaker 1: the so called godfather of gangster Wrap, and he very
Speaker 1: famously grew up in the rough l a neighborhood of Compton,
Speaker 1: and as one of his associates would later say, you
Speaker 1: have to have a role play to stay safe in
Speaker 1: those streets, and you were either a thug, a player,
Speaker 1: an athlete, a gangster, or a dope man. Otherwise, according
Speaker 1: to Easy associate, there was only one role left to you,
Speaker 1: the role of victims. And Easy he was a small
Speaker 1: guy and he had to keep himself safe, so we
Speaker 1: chose dopeman for a time dealing drugs, but after his
Speaker 1: cousin was shot and killed, he decided that he could
Speaker 1: make a better living in the emerging l A hip
Speaker 1: hop scene, which was really growing in popularity at that point.
Speaker 1: And it was around this time in that that he
Speaker 1: met Andre Young a k A. Dr Dre, who soon
Speaker 1: became his best friend. Yeah, I think it's pretty well
Speaker 1: documented at this point that like Easy was not really
Speaker 1: a good rapper. I mean it's my understanding that he
Speaker 1: pretty much had to be coached line by line in
Speaker 1: the studio and ice Cube I think wrote almost all
Speaker 1: of his lyrics, like on those classic and debut records.
Speaker 1: But what Easy he had was this authenticity, you know,
Speaker 1: of having a legitimate crime background. I also have to
Speaker 1: say too that I think Easy he has like a
Speaker 1: really cool sounding voice. Like there's something about Easy, like
Speaker 1: when you hear him on a record, like it doesn't
Speaker 1: seem like there's any artifice there, Like he just sounds
Speaker 1: like a dude from the main streets of Los Angeles
Speaker 1: talking about his life, even like when the stuff he's
Speaker 1: talking about is like pretty outlandish. Because I feel like
Speaker 1: n w A, as their career progressed, like their records
Speaker 1: kind of got pretty far out there, you know, from reality,
Speaker 1: but like Easy, he kind of kept it grounded just
Speaker 1: by force of his persona yeah, and just his path
Speaker 1: like as Easy he would later point out on dis
Speaker 1: tracks to Dr Dre. Dre came from the same neighborhood,
Speaker 1: but he never had the same street cred that Easy
Speaker 1: E did. Uh and Dre since hearing Grand Master Flash,
Speaker 1: he wanted to be a DJ. He hung out at
Speaker 1: a club called Eve after Dark, which is where many
Speaker 1: of the West Coast mcs would would would rhyme and perform,
Speaker 1: and it was here that he met Future in w
Speaker 1: a member DJ Yella, and he became a DJ there
Speaker 1: himself under the name Dr j at first after his
Speaker 1: favorite basketball player, Julius Irving, and that gradually morphed into
Speaker 1: Dr Dre the Master of Mixology, which sounds like someone
Speaker 1: who would make like a mean old fashioned or something
Speaker 1: about I guess master of mixology had a very different
Speaker 1: meaning at that time. And this club had a small
Speaker 1: four track studio in the back room, and that's where
Speaker 1: Drey and his friends would make early demos. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: like when you look at Dre and Easy early on,
Speaker 1: I mean they almost seemed like opposites of each other
Speaker 1: in terms of like what their attributes were. Like, you know,
Speaker 1: Easy had this authentic background for against rapper, but he
Speaker 1: wasn't really like that great in terms of being a rapper,
Speaker 1: whereas Drey was really like, I think, already becoming a
Speaker 1: musical mastermind, but he was also I mean, it's it
Speaker 1: fair to say that he was a dork at this time,
Speaker 1: Like he's kind of like a nerdy guy. Like you
Speaker 1: can google Dr Dre and find pictures of him in
Speaker 1: the group that he was in at this time called
Speaker 1: the World Class Wrecking Crew. I don't have you ever
Speaker 1: seen these photos, Like they're wearring, like these goldle mace suits.
Speaker 1: They're playing like key tars. They're like worrying key tars
Speaker 1: are very prevalent, and they're worrying makeup. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: not the image that we associate with Dr Dre or
Speaker 1: n Way. It's pretty corny when you're looking at it now.
Speaker 1: And of course it's like Electro a little Richard exactly.
Speaker 1: I feel like easy he had a lot to do
Speaker 1: with people seeing these photos eventually, because like he would eventually,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of bring these photos out as a
Speaker 1: way to make fun of Dre, like when they were
Speaker 1: deep into their feuds. But this was a pivotal moment
Speaker 1: in Tray's career. Not only was he working with I
Speaker 1: think Yellow was in World Class Wrecking Crew with him,
Speaker 1: he also ended up hooking up with this really talented
Speaker 1: rapper and writer named ice Cube when ice Cube was
Speaker 1: only Sick Team, and then he worked on a song
Speaker 1: together called Cabbage, and that was the beginning of their collaboration.
Speaker 1: Did you hear the story about like how Dre Easy
Speaker 1: kind of got together. Apparently like Dre had like a
Speaker 1: parking ticket and he needed Easy to like help him
Speaker 1: get out of it. And then just it's sort of
Speaker 1: like to repay the favors, like all right, fine, I'll
Speaker 1: help produce some songs for that little label that you're developing.
Speaker 1: And and that little label that Easy was developing became
Speaker 1: Ruthless Records, which was home to n w A and
Speaker 1: became a really pivotal label in the hip hop scene,
Speaker 1: especially for West Coast. When she said, oh, yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I mean this really was the beginning I think of
Speaker 1: like the West Coast having a real presence in hip hop.
Speaker 1: I mean before then, you know, like in the early eighties,
Speaker 1: it was very much based on the East. But as
Speaker 1: we get to the end of the eighties and into
Speaker 1: the nineties, the West Coast is going to really make
Speaker 1: their presence felt. So one's Easy. He decides to get
Speaker 1: out of drug dealing and go into music full time.
Speaker 1: He took his profits and formed Ruthless Records, and to
Speaker 1: help him run it he asked this guy, Jerry Heller,
Speaker 1: and Jerry Heller is kind of like generally viewed as
Speaker 1: the snake in this story. He's like a really polarizing figure,
Speaker 1: usually cast as the villain, but also cited as a
Speaker 1: really crucial figure in the band's development. And you know,
Speaker 1: both of these are probably true. I think he's probably
Speaker 1: mostly responsible for getting the bands to break outside of
Speaker 1: the West Coast and certainly outside of their neighborhood, but
Speaker 1: I think he also tore the band apart. When he
Speaker 1: first started managing m w A, he was like something
Speaker 1: like a forty year veteran of the music industry and
Speaker 1: he represented all kinds of people. Van Morrison CSN y
Speaker 1: otis reading the Who Black Sabbath, the list is like
Speaker 1: really extensive and um. In later years, the story was
Speaker 1: put around that Heller sought out in w A specifically
Speaker 1: to like take advantage of these inexperienced man and try
Speaker 1: to rip them off basically with industry contracts that he
Speaker 1: knew a lot about and they didn't. But he would
Speaker 1: say in his in his memoir that it was actually
Speaker 1: Easy who sought him out, and not the other way around,
Speaker 1: and that Easy actually paid somebody I think like seven
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty dollars to make an introduction to him,
Speaker 1: because he knew Jerry Heller had all these contacts into
Speaker 1: the you know, the Hollywood music and just reseen and
Speaker 1: he wanted to make this band big, and he was
Speaker 1: he was first and foremost a businessman. I would read
Speaker 1: later on that he was generally described Easy was as
Speaker 1: like a businessman who happened to wrap and so seeking
Speaker 1: out Heller was his way to bring the band to
Speaker 1: the next level. So Hellard becomes n W as manager.
Speaker 1: And look, if you listen to our show, you know
Speaker 1: that like artists having managers that they don't trust. It's
Speaker 1: got common story in music history, like n W as
Speaker 1: far from the first group to have this. But I
Speaker 1: think the reason why this ended up being such a
Speaker 1: divisive moment in the group's history is that from Drey's perspective,
Speaker 1: he really looked at Jerry Heller as being Easy's guy,
Speaker 1: and if Jerry had any loyalties at all, it wasn't
Speaker 1: to the group overall. It was always going to be
Speaker 1: too easy and he really felt, and I think with justification,
Speaker 1: like as the group's career progressed, that oftentimes, Drey was
Speaker 1: getting the short end of the stick financially, while Easy
Speaker 1: was making out really well with his good friend Jerry Heller.
Speaker 1: And you know, Drey said later on that he felt
Speaker 1: that Heller's strategy in the group was basically divide and conquer,
Speaker 1: that he could split up the group's loyalties and in
Speaker 1: that way he could weaken the other members and it
Speaker 1: could just consolidate the power with Easy and Jerry. And
Speaker 1: it seems like, in a way that's what is going
Speaker 1: to happen as we move forward here. The first nw
Speaker 1: A recordings were born out of a song called Boys
Speaker 1: in the Hood that he tried to give to his
Speaker 1: Ruthless record signing HBO, who turned it down. So Cube
Speaker 1: dre E formed the first version of NWA to record
Speaker 1: it themselves, and this was followed up by Panic Zone,
Speaker 1: which was included in the seven compilation n w A
Speaker 1: and the Posse, which is kind of like a compilation
Speaker 1: party oriented jam record kind of thing. And n w
Speaker 1: A was still in just developing stages and they're only
Speaker 1: on I think like three of the tracks on the album.
Speaker 1: The songs are Panic Zone, eight Ball, and Dopeman. But
Speaker 1: it was the first collaboration with Arabian Prince, DJ, Yellow
Speaker 1: Dr Dre and Ice Cube, and it was the first
Speaker 1: time they were all together. The thing about that record though,
Speaker 1: is that I feel like most people didn't hear about
Speaker 1: that album until the net w A record, which of
Speaker 1: course is Straight Out of Content, which drops in August.
Speaker 1: This is really, I think, not the official first record,
Speaker 1: but it's like the true first record for an n
Speaker 1: w A. It's where they really become the band that
Speaker 1: we know, like this dangerous, innovative hip hop group that
Speaker 1: is going to just change really like the face of
Speaker 1: music at that time. This is a really crucial summer
Speaker 1: in hip hop history because you know, you have Straight
Speaker 1: Out of Content that comes out in August, and then
Speaker 1: two months before that you have Public Enemy putting out
Speaker 1: what I think many people consider to be their classic record.
Speaker 1: It takes a nation of millions to hold us back,
Speaker 1: and it really is the peak of like this sort
Speaker 1: of angry, provocative and very political type of hip hop
Speaker 1: and w A. Of course, the signature song ends up
Speaker 1: being Fucked the Police, which is I think still an
Speaker 1: anthem for people. That's still probably the best known protest
Speaker 1: song about police brutality that hip hop has ever spawned.
Speaker 1: That song actually resulted in a letter sent to the
Speaker 1: group from the FBI. I mean, what is the implication
Speaker 1: of that letter. It was like basically like a warning
Speaker 1: letter to them, right, I mean, like what were they
Speaker 1: warning them about exact basically? I mean what I had
Speaker 1: heard was that it was basically a rogue member of
Speaker 1: the FBI. That it wasn't like a formal thing from
Speaker 1: sent on high from them. It was just like one
Speaker 1: member who happened to work for the FBI put it
Speaker 1: on FBI stationary basically, and he was kind of warning
Speaker 1: them to stop releasing these inflammatory songs because it was
Speaker 1: basically like a notch below like excitement to riot. And
Speaker 1: I think the song like they got in legal trouble
Speaker 1: from performing in a lot of gigs too for the
Speaker 1: same reason. It was almost like a Lenny Bruce kind
Speaker 1: of thing where they there would be police in the
Speaker 1: wings and stuff. Um, yeah, that was really strange, and
Speaker 1: it's on display at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,
Speaker 1: and yeah it was. It was more like a low
Speaker 1: level bureaucrat I think who actually sent that. But still
Speaker 1: the impact was I mean, the press value of that
Speaker 1: alone was pretty impressive. It was sent to their label,
Speaker 1: and I think the band members themselves, well, I was
Speaker 1: gonna say, like, I mean, could you ask for better
Speaker 1: publicity than giving a letter from the FBI. I wonder, like,
Speaker 1: you know, if this rogue Agent was like a and
Speaker 1: of the world class Wrecking Crew and he was just
Speaker 1: upset at this like more sort of like you know,
Speaker 1: they to turn. Yeah, it's like where the key tars Man,
Speaker 1: Like I miss I missed the gold le may suits.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure about this new image. That's my theory
Speaker 1: anyway about that rogue Agent. If like Public Enemy was
Speaker 1: like the Clash, I feel like n w A was
Speaker 1: like Guns and Roses at this time, you know, n
Speaker 1: w AY they called their music reality rap. But I
Speaker 1: do think that there was this kind of like over
Speaker 1: the top element to like what they did, like where
Speaker 1: they took the reality of like street violence in Los
Speaker 1: Angeles and they just like blew it up to like
Speaker 1: a grand scale. So like kids in the suburbs that
Speaker 1: were like just totally attracted to n w A. They
Speaker 1: loved the danger of this group. They were just sucked
Speaker 1: into some of the reality and also like some of
Speaker 1: the fantasy of those records. And if I can continue
Speaker 1: this analogy, I would say that like easy E was
Speaker 1: like the Axl Rose of n w A because he
Speaker 1: was like the most colorful and the most charismatic and
Speaker 1: like really like I think, kind of the most dangerous
Speaker 1: one in the band, you know, like ice Cube. Again,
Speaker 1: he was doing a lot of the writing, Dre was
Speaker 1: handling the music. But I think Easy along with being
Speaker 1: the businessman, he just felt the most like he could
Speaker 1: have actually been one of the characters that they were
Speaker 1: like talking about in their songs. He felt like he
Speaker 1: was actually from the streets in a way that maybe
Speaker 1: those other guys weren't. And I remember at the time
Speaker 1: it seemed like Easy almost from like the jump of
Speaker 1: that record was being set aside as a standalone star.
Speaker 1: Like just three months after Straight Out of Comptent comes out,
Speaker 1: he puts out his first solo record, and it's really
Speaker 1: the only solo record that he completed during his lifetime.
Speaker 1: That of course is Easy does it. That album goes
Speaker 1: undergo double platinum, So that record is a big hit
Speaker 1: on its own. So not only is Easy you know
Speaker 1: a star in n w A, but he's already kind
Speaker 1: of establishing his own career on the side now. As
Speaker 1: we see so often on this show, relatively instant success
Speaker 1: is almost never a good thing for a young band,
Speaker 1: and the success of Straight Out of Compton underscored the
Speaker 1: fact that the bandmates weren't getting the money that they
Speaker 1: felt they'd been owned. And it's what we were talking earlier.
Speaker 1: The contracts that Jerry Heller put together vastly favored E
Speaker 1: as the head of the record label rather than the
Speaker 1: rest of the group. And it was a pretty large
Speaker 1: group too, So ice Cube in particular is the one
Speaker 1: who really has a problem with the way that the
Speaker 1: money is being arranged because he's the chief writer of
Speaker 1: this huge album. Plus he wrote most of Easy Ease
Speaker 1: debut album too, and he's still living at home with
Speaker 1: his parents and doing the dishes and stuff. Meanwhile, Jerry
Speaker 1: Heller and E are living in huge mansions and driving
Speaker 1: luxury cars, and it looked awful lot like they were
Speaker 1: all getting rich off of his work, which they were,
Speaker 1: so by the middle of Ice Cube had received thirty
Speaker 1: two thousand dollars in album royalties and a little bit
Speaker 1: less than that. I'm out for performing on the n
Speaker 1: w AS first National Tour, which is I mean laughable
Speaker 1: to Pittans for you know, multi platinum record. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean he's basically being paid like what you would be
Speaker 1: paid to like manage like a fast food restaurant, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, not the kind of money that you would
Speaker 1: expect from the writer of like you know, a couple
Speaker 1: of like platinum records. So, like ice Cube actually ends
Speaker 1: up leaving the group pretty early on, and initially, like
Speaker 1: Dre is kind of lashing out a Cube about this,
Speaker 1: he has loyalty to n w A. But then Drey
Speaker 1: starts to realize that he also is not making the
Speaker 1: kind of money that he should be making because along
Speaker 1: with you know, producing a way, he's also like working
Speaker 1: on like the Easy record, He's like producing like the
Speaker 1: d O C. Michelle A, like all these hit records
Speaker 1: and not making a lot of money. Like Jerry Holler
Speaker 1: bizorted mission like in an article of that Rolling Stone
Speaker 1: did on this, he said that like Drey only made
Speaker 1: like eighty six thousand dollars from all of the production
Speaker 1: work that he was doing for Ruthless Records. And the
Speaker 1: thing here, I mean it's interesting because like Drey, of
Speaker 1: course he would accuse Jerry Heller of ripping him off.
Speaker 1: But it's like, if you sign a bad deal, are
Speaker 1: you being ripped off? Or have you just not taking
Speaker 1: care of your own business. I mean, that seems like
Speaker 1: the issue here, and it it's kind of like a
Speaker 1: hazy distinction to make because obviously, when musicians first get
Speaker 1: into the business, many times they don't know much about
Speaker 1: contracts or like how to negotiate like the best deals
Speaker 1: for themselves. And you know, people like Jerry Howard take
Speaker 1: advantage of that. They heavily tilt the scales so that
Speaker 1: they make way more money than the artists who was
Speaker 1: actually doing the work. And I think, again from Drey's perspective,
Speaker 1: he was angry at Jerry Heller about this, but I
Speaker 1: think he also felt betrayed by Easy because he felt
Speaker 1: that Easy was essentially working in concert with with Jerry Howard.
Speaker 1: And it's like, you're my friend, you're my bandmate, and
Speaker 1: yet you consciously allowed this to happen. You knew that
Speaker 1: he was going to basically screw me over with this contract,
Speaker 1: and you just let him do it because ultimately you
Speaker 1: knew that it was the best thing for your bottom
Speaker 1: line exactly. I mean, at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: he blamed e for bringing this outsider into their myths,
Speaker 1: into their neighborhood. Really, and it's interesting that, you know,
Speaker 1: for all of the frustration that ice Cube and Dre felt,
Speaker 1: they never actually sued Heller for financial malfeasance, which means,
Speaker 1: like he said, he wasn't legally doing anything wrong. He
Speaker 1: just put a deal together of heavily favorite him and
Speaker 1: Dre didn't know any better at this time, and and
Speaker 1: his associates at this time would say this too, like
Speaker 1: he really didn't read contracts. It really wasn't you know,
Speaker 1: his thing. He was more of a creative and so,
Speaker 1: and that came back to haunt him in this case.
Speaker 1: And ice Cube ended up leaving the group right after
Speaker 1: Straight out of Compton went global, and he was the
Speaker 1: biggest star in the band at this time, and he
Speaker 1: was the best position to go solo. And his first album,
Speaker 1: America's Most Wanted, went to number one in just two weeks.
Speaker 1: And he didn't mention the bad blood in nw A
Speaker 1: directly in this album. I think it's important to note,
Speaker 1: but that would that would happen later. Yeah, it's interesting
Speaker 1: with Cube because there's this long gestation process that takes
Speaker 1: place between him in n W A like after he left,
Speaker 1: like where you know we're going to see this at
Speaker 1: n w A is going to be much more aggressive
Speaker 1: about attacking Cube, and Cube is like really not going
Speaker 1: to respond for a long time until he like really responds,
Speaker 1: like in the most vicious way possible. But we're getting
Speaker 1: a little out of ourselves with that. I just want
Speaker 1: to say for now, like ice Cube is like one
Speaker 1: of my favorite rappers of all time, especially of this era.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's got a great voice, he's a great writer,
Speaker 1: and he was like a genuinely dangerous character, like I
Speaker 1: don't know, like if you listen to albums like Death
Speaker 1: Certificate or The Predator or America's Most Wanted, I mean
Speaker 1: he could be like a really menacing presence on his
Speaker 1: records and in his music videos and it was just riveting.
Speaker 1: And I feel like him leading n w A, even
Speaker 1: though you still had dre and easy in that group,
Speaker 1: it really was like a death blow to that group artistically,
Speaker 1: Like I don't think they were ever as good without
Speaker 1: him as they were with him in the band. Oh no,
Speaker 1: and I'm not on the mic and not with that
Speaker 1: was writing too, especially so n w A do not
Speaker 1: afford Cube the same courtesy. The next disc they put
Speaker 1: out as an EP, hundred Miles and Running. The title
Speaker 1: track includes a disk track of ice Cube we started
Speaker 1: with five, but yo one couldn't take it, so now
Speaker 1: it's four because the fifth couldn't make it, and the
Speaker 1: video for the song depicted the remaining members of n
Speaker 1: w A together in a jail cell. On ice Cube
Speaker 1: look Alike is released, which is uh not particular really subtle.
Speaker 1: There's another track on the album that refers to him
Speaker 1: as Benedict Arnold, Uh, you know, the famous trader of
Speaker 1: the revolutionary era. But really Cube gets his revenge on
Speaker 1: kill it will. Well not really though, because like I
Speaker 1: feel like he's still like fairly passive aggressive on this record,
Speaker 1: like he's like a little more deliberate. Like there's that
Speaker 1: skit at the end of the record called I Gotta
Speaker 1: Say What Up where ice Cube is doing this like
Speaker 1: fake radio interview where he's talking about some of the
Speaker 1: great like rap groups of the era, like Public Enemy,
Speaker 1: Ghetto Boys, people like that, and then there's a question
Speaker 1: where they say, since you went solo, what's up with
Speaker 1: the rest of your crew? And then he hangs up,
Speaker 1: So like the application being that like you know, someone's
Speaker 1: asking about n w A and he's not even gonna
Speaker 1: answer the question, so like not really going after them
Speaker 1: still at this point, especially considering like the direct shots
Speaker 1: that n w A was taking at him at the time,
Speaker 1: he was still like playing it pretty cool and maybe
Speaker 1: continue to prod him on their second full length album,
Speaker 1: and it really Animals and he gets even more clear.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's dragatory references to Ice Cube found in
Speaker 1: several songs, as the interlude a message to be a
Speaker 1: Benedict Arnold echoes the beginning of Ice Cube's song turn
Speaker 1: Off the Radio from America's Most Wanted, and he's addressed
Speaker 1: by name in this same track, and then the band
Speaker 1: members just throw a torrent of abuse adam in their
Speaker 1: lyrics and say when we see your as, we're gonna
Speaker 1: cut your hair off and fuck you with a broomstick
Speaker 1: by m c wren. So yeah, yeah, that's that's again
Speaker 1: not terribly subtle. So this is really when Cube decides
Speaker 1: to go nuclear. Yeah, he's gonna go nuclear here. Before
Speaker 1: we get to that, though, I just want to say,
Speaker 1: like I realized that I learned about Benedict Arnold from
Speaker 1: listening to rap records in like the late eighties are
Speaker 1: early nineties, because like all these Benedict Arnold references like
Speaker 1: these on a records, I was like, you know, I
Speaker 1: would have had no idea who that was if like
Speaker 1: this historical figure was not being brought up like on
Speaker 1: these albums. I just love the fact that like they
Speaker 1: brought Bennett Arnold back, like gave him some cultural relevance,
Speaker 1: you know, at that time, exactly liking him to ice Cube,
Speaker 1: So you can only call a man Benedict Arnold so
Speaker 1: many times before he finally lashes out, and finally ice Cube,
Speaker 1: you know, we get to the album Death Certificate and
Speaker 1: he unleashes the song no Vaseline, which is one of
Speaker 1: the most notorious disc tracks ever, and I feel like
Speaker 1: ice Cube must have just been like seething for like
Speaker 1: two or three years. You know, He's taking all this
Speaker 1: crap from his former bandmates, the people that he felt
Speaker 1: like had screwed him over, especially easy and playing it
Speaker 1: relatively cool, and finally he's like, I've had enough. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna unleash a torrent of just again devastating blows. And look,
Speaker 1: I can't quote too many of the lyrics of this
Speaker 1: song because well, for one thing, there's like a fair
Speaker 1: amount of anti semitism and homophobia in this song. I
Speaker 1: hate to say, it's like it hasn't really aged well
Speaker 1: in that regard, although even at the time a lot
Speaker 1: of people criticize the song for those elements of it.
Speaker 1: But the gist of no Vassoline essentially is that the
Speaker 1: guys in w A are soft, They look like Bozo's,
Speaker 1: they're basically stooges for Jerry Heller, ice Cube believes that
Speaker 1: he's a man with the guts, you know, to go
Speaker 1: out on his own to make his own money, while
Speaker 1: the guys in n w A are you know, still
Speaker 1: stuck under the thumb of this crooked manager. He accuses
Speaker 1: them of living in an all white neighborhood, basically just
Speaker 1: calling them a bunch of phonies, and the overall ideas
Speaker 1: that these guys are getting screwed with no Vasoline and
Speaker 1: you can kind of figure out what that means. But yeah,
Speaker 1: this is like just a devastating disk track. I'm it's
Speaker 1: hard for me to think of many songs that like
Speaker 1: are like meaner than this about like like on our show,
Speaker 1: you know, we've had some like definitely mean moments and songs.
Speaker 1: You know, artists talking about other artists saying disparaging things,
Speaker 1: but like no, Vassoline just takes that to like another
Speaker 1: level and sort of adding salt to in the b
Speaker 1: way He's wounds. To me, at this point, they're almost
Speaker 1: a spent force. They're basically finished because in the early
Speaker 1: nineties Dr Dre become tight with with n W as
Speaker 1: bodyguard and a one time l a RAMS player called
Speaker 1: Sugar Knight, and Night was trying to break into the
Speaker 1: music industry in a bigger way, and he started a
Speaker 1: music publishing firm, and he got his first big profit,
Speaker 1: according to music legend, by having Vanilla Ice sign over
Speaker 1: royalties from his hit song Ice Ice Baby, by persuading
Speaker 1: Ice that he used material from Sugar's own client, a
Speaker 1: guy by the name of Mario Johnson, and allegedly he
Speaker 1: persuaded Vanilla Ice to sign these rights over by threatening
Speaker 1: to drop him off the fifteenth floor of his hotel.
Speaker 1: There are several stories that my favorite involves Sugar actually
Speaker 1: dangling him over the balcony by his ankles. I don't
Speaker 1: know if that's true. I love that I've only seen
Speaker 1: that in movies, Like I mean, I didn't know people
Speaker 1: actually did that in real life, like dangling people off
Speaker 1: a balcony. I want that to be true. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: pretend that it's true, even though I feel like there's
Speaker 1: probably an element of bullshit to that. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: this is just one of sugar knights many questionable but
Speaker 1: very effective business practices. And he becomes close to Dr
Speaker 1: Dre through n W a associate the DC around this period,
Speaker 1: and he's hearing Drey's complaints about Easy and Jerry Heller,
Speaker 1: and Shook says, well, you know, I'll take a look
Speaker 1: at the ruthless records books for you, and he convinces
Speaker 1: Drey that he is indeed getting ripped off, and furthermore,
Speaker 1: he convinces Dre to go into business with him. So
Speaker 1: Dre goes to Easy gives him an ultimatum, either Jerry
Speaker 1: Heller goes or I go an Easy picked Jerry and
Speaker 1: all right hand, we'll be right back with more rivals.
Speaker 1: So at this point it's Sugar Knight's job to get
Speaker 1: Dre out of his contract. And of course Easy isn't
Speaker 1: gonna let Dre leave because Dre is a very valuable
Speaker 1: commodity to him. So Shugar is gonna go I guess
Speaker 1: the vanilla ice route of dangling people out of balconies,
Speaker 1: but really he's gonna go the extra mile here in
Speaker 1: his dealings with Easy, basically there's this incident like where
Speaker 1: dre invited Easy to a studio to have a meeting,
Speaker 1: presumably to talk about business. So Easy shows up and
Speaker 1: turns out that Drey is not there. Guess who is there?
Speaker 1: Sugar Knight and like a gang of goons holding baseball
Speaker 1: bats and pipes. Now, I don't know about you, Jordan's,
Speaker 1: but like I'm kind of a scaredy cat. I think
Speaker 1: you could say if I walked into a room and
Speaker 1: I saw a Sugar Knight and a bunch of guys
Speaker 1: holding baseball bats and pipes anything, Yeah, I think I
Speaker 1: would like fill a diaper. Uh. You know, I would
Speaker 1: be very upset over that, and I think I would
Speaker 1: probably give him whatever he wanted at that moment. But
Speaker 1: like Easy, to his credit, did not give in. He
Speaker 1: could see that Shug was just trying to intimidate him,
Speaker 1: so he's like, no, I'm not gonna let Dre go.
Speaker 1: So then Shug says, and this is crazy. He says
Speaker 1: that he has kidnapped Jerry Heller and he has them
Speaker 1: like tied up in a van somewhere, which, like, I
Speaker 1: don't think that was true, right, like he did. It's
Speaker 1: very easily disapprovable. Yeah, right, So again Easy he's like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna let Drey out of his contract. Again
Speaker 1: he we could tell that Shug was lying about that.
Speaker 1: Then Shug says, I know where your mom stays, and
Speaker 1: he actually writes down Easy's mom's address on a piece
Speaker 1: of paper and hands it to him. The lowest blow
Speaker 1: that you can have, really, I mean, I just can't believe.
Speaker 1: That seems like a way a place you would not go,
Speaker 1: just just you know, just as your personal code of
Speaker 1: conduct that seems like a line you do not cross.
Speaker 1: And to the idea that like dre implicitly authorized, this
Speaker 1: just adds itself to injury. I mean, this is your
Speaker 1: friend who has you know, employed this fully essentially into
Speaker 1: threatening your mom over a business deal. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is like really really bad stuff. But you know, this
Speaker 1: is the thing that convinces Easy to finally let Drey
Speaker 1: out of his contract. So that is how he was
Speaker 1: able to leave ruthless records. Because this guy shook Knight
Speaker 1: essentially threatened Easy's mother, and there was a story later
Speaker 1: on Jerry Howard told the story that like Easy actually
Speaker 1: wanted to kill Shook Knight, and like Jerry Hellard talked
Speaker 1: him out of it. And then Heller said that he
Speaker 1: regretted that he talked Easy out of killing Sugar Knight.
Speaker 1: You know, like that's how bad this gout. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was pretty bad, but it could have actually been
Speaker 1: much worse. So this really ugly incident is a genesis
Speaker 1: of death Row Records. It would eventually sign Dre, Snoop Dogg, Tupac.
Speaker 1: They become, you know, their aim at the beginning was
Speaker 1: to become the motown of the nineties, and they pretty
Speaker 1: much got there. And in August and nine did any
Speaker 1: one Easy file a state complaint against Drey and death
Speaker 1: Row Records and Suge Knight, basically alleging that all these
Speaker 1: defendants had used duress and menace to get Easy to
Speaker 1: avoid Drey's contract and you know, basically said you can't
Speaker 1: get out of a contract by like threatening my mom
Speaker 1: and threatening me with a baseball bat. The suit was dismissed,
Speaker 1: but the terms of the departure meant that Easy would
Speaker 1: get would continue to profit off of Dr Dre maintained
Speaker 1: the percentage of his royalties, which meant those months of
Speaker 1: Dr Dre hated him, he still owned him to a
Speaker 1: certain extent, and making things even worse the lawsuit Torpedo
Speaker 1: Death rows initial plan of being acquired by Sony, they
Speaker 1: ended up being acquired by Interscope through Warner Brother Records instead.
Speaker 1: So even though he lost the battle of keeping Dr
Speaker 1: Dred his label, he scored a really valuable victory of
Speaker 1: still making money off of his former friends. It's interesting
Speaker 1: to me that at this point you're really going to
Speaker 1: start to see the scales tip towards Dre's side, and
Speaker 1: the way that he's going to get one over on
Speaker 1: Easy is by using his music, not street tactics. Because
Speaker 1: he puts out this album called The Chronic, which is
Speaker 1: of course one of the biggest rap records ever made,
Speaker 1: one of the great albums of the nineteen nineties. And
Speaker 1: you know, I remember when that album came out, like
Speaker 1: you could not go anywhere, whether it was like a
Speaker 1: fast food restaurant or the swimming pool or the grocery
Speaker 1: store or on television without hearing songs from that album.
Speaker 1: For like the Better part of like two Years, and
Speaker 1: I feel like that album went a long way toward
Speaker 1: taking this beef between Dre and Easy, which was something
Speaker 1: that you know, like, if you were into hip hop
Speaker 1: you knew about. If you read like rap magazines, you
Speaker 1: were on top of bit But if you were just
Speaker 1: like a normal music fan, you know, someone in the
Speaker 1: middle of the country who wasn't all that well versed
Speaker 1: in this stuff, you didn't really hear about it until
Speaker 1: the Chronic came out, And especially the songs Funk with
Speaker 1: drey Day and Everybody Celebrating and Bitches Ain't Ship. Like
Speaker 1: those two songs I feel like defined the conflict between
Speaker 1: these guys, and of course it painted it in a
Speaker 1: way that was like pro Dre and very anti Easy,
Speaker 1: and he ended up looking terrible like from this album,
Speaker 1: and I think it really kind of defined how people
Speaker 1: looked at it like from then on. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: especially Funk with dred Day. For me, I always thought
Speaker 1: that song was like the final scene in The Godfather
Speaker 1: for Dre. It's it's the moment when he takes out
Speaker 1: all of his major enemies. He fired shots at the
Speaker 1: East Coast rapper Tim Dog, Uncle Luke of two Live Crew,
Speaker 1: Ice Cube, and of course Easy and the extremely unpc
Speaker 1: lyrics mostly involved attacking E with various homosexual slurs and accusations. Uh,
Speaker 1: used to be my homie, used to be my ace.
Speaker 1: Now I want to slap the taste out your mouth,
Speaker 1: make you bow down to the road, throw fucking me
Speaker 1: now I'm sucking you little home. It's just a small
Speaker 1: selection of of the the extremely brutal lyrics. And you know,
Speaker 1: the song is like bad enough, but I feel like
Speaker 1: the video like really took it to another level. Like
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've seen this video, but like
Speaker 1: there's this character named Sleazy E who like has like
Speaker 1: the Jerry Ko hair, and he has like the sunglasses
Speaker 1: on very clearly supposed to be easy. And there's also
Speaker 1: like a manager in there who, like, I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't know how to say this delicately, he's basically like
Speaker 1: a caricature of like a Jewish manager. Like it's borders
Speaker 1: on anti Semitism, like the depiction of this manager in
Speaker 1: the video, And the idea is just to depict Sleazy
Speaker 1: Z as this like clown who will do anything that
Speaker 1: his manager wants him to do. And the idea is
Speaker 1: to basically just make Easy look like a buffoon, you know,
Speaker 1: and like by the end of the video, he's like
Speaker 1: living under an overpass carrying a sign that says will
Speaker 1: wrap for food. You know, just like a pathetic figure
Speaker 1: in this video. And again I think you know people,
Speaker 1: you know, if you love in w A. The big
Speaker 1: thing about Easy was that he was like this cool,
Speaker 1: tough guy and you watched this video and like Dre
Speaker 1: has totally flipped the script on him to make him
Speaker 1: look weak and pathetic and you know, like a guy
Speaker 1: who was on his way out. Essentially, he just like
Speaker 1: robbed Easy of like all the coolness and the power
Speaker 1: that he had in w way and did it on
Speaker 1: like a grand scale. Like again, this is a song
Speaker 1: on like one of the biggest records of the era,
Speaker 1: and this music video was like on all the time.
Speaker 1: I mean it was, you know, one of those videos
Speaker 1: in the only nineties that you like literally saw every
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes on MTV. And I think this song ended
Speaker 1: up being like a top ten hit like on the
Speaker 1: pop charts. So again, it wasn't just something that like
Speaker 1: if you were seriously into hip hop that you cared about.
Speaker 1: This was something that like pop fans now knew about
Speaker 1: but they had a very kind of skewed perspective on it.
Speaker 1: It was about Dre making Easy look terrible, and I
Speaker 1: think for a lot of people, well, they didn't really
Speaker 1: go beyond that, like that's all they really knew about it,
Speaker 1: And that was devastating for Easy, and Drey wasn't even done.
Speaker 1: This double barrel assault continues with bitches ain't ship and
Speaker 1: that he bitch in the title for Dre refers to Easy,
Speaker 1: or he refers to him by his birth name in
Speaker 1: the song directly by Eric Wright, which is again just
Speaker 1: kind of strips him of any kind of persona that
Speaker 1: Easy he had made for himself. He's just completely laid
Speaker 1: bare with his birth name. I thought that was a
Speaker 1: really telling choice. Uh, And it was a brief rundown
Speaker 1: of their friendship history. And he hurls a number of
Speaker 1: other homophobic slurs at him, and Uh again goes back
Speaker 1: to basically making him sound like a stooge for Jerry Heller,
Speaker 1: and he mentions the Ruthless Records lawsuits, saying and now
Speaker 1: he's suing because the ship he's doing ain't ship. Bitches
Speaker 1: can't hang with the street found herself short, he always
Speaker 1: refers to himself by the female pronoun in the song
Speaker 1: now She's taking Me to Court, so yes, and that
Speaker 1: is what another hit song from the album too So again,
Speaker 1: as he said, completely devastating for easy reputation, both musically
Speaker 1: and just his repute patian as you know, a guy
Speaker 1: from the streets. Now, of course, when Easy hears this stuff,
Speaker 1: he's not happy. And you can see how unhappy he
Speaker 1: is with his next release, which is an EP called
Speaker 1: It's on Dr Dreem Killer, And this album is basically
Speaker 1: just about how much he hates Dr Dre and how
Speaker 1: he wants to kill Dr Dre. Like, there's eight songs
Speaker 1: on this record, five of them are about Dre. The
Speaker 1: song that stands out to me is the song real
Speaker 1: Motherfucking Geez, which, like, in a way, I kind of
Speaker 1: like this song. It's like a pretty good parody of
Speaker 1: like the g Funk era sound of like the chronic
Speaker 1: Like you could tell that he's basically just like trying
Speaker 1: to like make fun of that sound and like in
Speaker 1: the aesthetic of that record, and you know, the core
Speaker 1: message of that song basically again is that Dr Dre
Speaker 1: is a phony. You know, Easy is saying I'm the
Speaker 1: real gangster and Dre is this like wimpy guy and
Speaker 1: all he does is talk. And in the music video
Speaker 1: for the song, this is where he dug out those
Speaker 1: photos we were talking about before, like the world Class
Speaker 1: Wrecking Crew where you know rais where in the again
Speaker 1: the gold may suit, he has the makeup on, he's
Speaker 1: playing a key tar. The idea is to make him
Speaker 1: look foolish essentially in this video. The problem for Easy
Speaker 1: is that the chronic was so big and Dre at
Speaker 1: this time really was like a superstar, probably the most
Speaker 1: famous rapper on the planet really at this point, and
Speaker 1: like no one really cared about, you know, showing embarrassing
Speaker 1: photos of Dre, Like I think in reality, like you know,
Speaker 1: people love that record because the music was really good.
Speaker 1: They didn't really, I think, believe that like Drey was
Speaker 1: actually like a criminal or something. So to show him
Speaker 1: in this embarrassing light, I think people ultimately shrugged their
Speaker 1: shoulders because they're like, well, okay, fine, he looked like
Speaker 1: that back then, but his record is still really great,
Speaker 1: so we're gonna go with Dre. And I mean I
Speaker 1: feel like that EP still like did like fairly well,
Speaker 1: like sold like a couple hundred thousand copies in its
Speaker 1: first week, which would have been fine on its own,
Speaker 1: but it just like paled in comparison to what Drey
Speaker 1: did on the Chronic And really, at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, like the record sales were like the most
Speaker 1: devastating message of all Drake could just like basically point
Speaker 1: and say scoreboard, you know, at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: and show that he had won, you know, this part
Speaker 1: of the battle. Yeah, I think the EP made him
Speaker 1: look hetty. I mean, you make a really great comparison
Speaker 1: in your book about how easy he was basically like
Speaker 1: Dave Mustaine in the Metallica Mega Death feud, or it's
Speaker 1: just like you're trying way too hard, Like how about
Speaker 1: you make a good record and like Drey's doing and
Speaker 1: not make you know, two thirds of it be about
Speaker 1: how much you hate this dude. And I think that
Speaker 1: that was really at the core of Easy Eves, that
Speaker 1: his reputation as a musician was not great at this period.
Speaker 1: I mean, he needed the lyrical wit of ice Cube,
Speaker 1: and he needed Drey's beats, and you know, he wasn't
Speaker 1: really challenging himself. He wasn't teaming up with producers that
Speaker 1: would push him. A lot of his records in this
Speaker 1: era were sounding like stuff that n w A had
Speaker 1: done four or five years earlier. And also his reputation
Speaker 1: just in the hip hop community wasn't good because apparently
Speaker 1: he was at this point deemed very difficult to work with,
Speaker 1: and he alienated himself from many of his friends and
Speaker 1: former friends and artists. Even his longtime friend mc ran
Speaker 1: voiced his dislike for Easy n He said he had
Speaker 1: a big head and was a want to be mega
Speaker 1: star and even suggested the w A should reunite without Easy.
Speaker 1: So really, at this point, his reputation is kind of
Speaker 1: in the toilet. I think there was an article in
Speaker 1: Vibe magazine that kind of said, like, you know, is
Speaker 1: there anyone lower in the hip hop community right now
Speaker 1: than Easy? And the inference was no. And just the
Speaker 1: fact that he had released this EP that was just
Speaker 1: filled with uh, just this obsession with Dr Dre just
Speaker 1: kind of made him seem weak. You know, It's interesting
Speaker 1: to contemplate, like what would have happened if this rivalry
Speaker 1: would have taken its course throughout the decade, Like if
Speaker 1: Eazy E would have lived and if there would have
Speaker 1: still been a back and forth or if him and
Speaker 1: Dre would have found a way to reconcile. Of course,
Speaker 1: we don't know the answer to that, because Easy ended
Speaker 1: up getting checked into the hospital in early he had
Speaker 1: a really bad cough and he was pretty quickly after
Speaker 1: that diagnosed as having AIDS and really, like I think
Speaker 1: it was like a month later that he passed away.
Speaker 1: This was like an incredibly like just rapid turn of
Speaker 1: events for Easy, and he ended up, you know, dying
Speaker 1: at the age of thirty, which is just like an
Speaker 1: incredibly sad story, you know, just to pass away at
Speaker 1: that age, just incredibly tragic. What emerges out of Easy's
Speaker 1: death is this story about basically Drey and Easy having
Speaker 1: this like deathbed reconciliation. And this is a story that
Speaker 1: Dre himself has told on numerous occasions, though the details
Speaker 1: I kept change depending on when he's telling it. Like,
Speaker 1: you know, there's one interview where he actually says that
Speaker 1: like him and Easy had a phone conversation like two
Speaker 1: weeks before he went into the hospital where they you know,
Speaker 1: talked about old times and even discussed the possibility of
Speaker 1: like reuniting and w A. And then there's like another
Speaker 1: story that like, you know that they saw each other
Speaker 1: in the hospital and they were able to have this
Speaker 1: moment where you know, they buried the hatchet and made
Speaker 1: peace before Easy passed. But also, I mean, it seems
Speaker 1: like Easy was in a coma for like most of
Speaker 1: the time that he was in the hospital, and it
Speaker 1: appears that like when Dre was there, that like Easy
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been conscious. That it just reminds me of
Speaker 1: like another episode we did about the Band where you
Speaker 1: had Robbie Robertson and Leave on Helm, a very similar
Speaker 1: situation where you have these two guys who had a
Speaker 1: bitter feud going on for years and then one of
Speaker 1: them gets sick in this case, Leave on Helm and
Speaker 1: then Robbie Robertson goes to the hospital and according to Robbie,
Speaker 1: they have this reconciliation. But was it really a reconciliation
Speaker 1: if the other guy isn't conscious, Like that's the mystery
Speaker 1: of this. Like, I don't know if we'll ever quite
Speaker 1: know the truth of this, because in a way, you know,
Speaker 1: I feel like it's a little too convenient for Dre
Speaker 1: to like have this story that like they somehow patched
Speaker 1: it up, because I feel there's like evidence of the
Speaker 1: contrary that like Easy was still pretty mad at Dre,
Speaker 1: like at the end of his life. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: one of the big points of this is the posthumous
Speaker 1: album Straight Off the Streets of Motherfucking Compton, And there
Speaker 1: are several songs on the album that takes shots to
Speaker 1: death row Old school Ship and would You Do And
Speaker 1: the music video for just to Let You Know features
Speaker 1: a rapper named Eric Easy's real name, beating with another
Speaker 1: rapper who believes that Eric ripped him off and uh,
Speaker 1: and then this other rapper gets shot, so the other
Speaker 1: rapper clearly being Dr Dre. It kind of seems like
Speaker 1: if they had reconciled at least Easy, he's a state,
Speaker 1: would have maybe gone a little easier on the Death
Speaker 1: Road Team. I don't know, Yeah, that seems questionable to me.
Speaker 1: It's weird. It's definitely weird. Dre definitely forgave him. I
Speaker 1: think it remains to be seen whether or not E
Speaker 1: actually forgave Dre. And it's worth noting over the years,
Speaker 1: many people in Easy Ease circle have come forward to
Speaker 1: say that they don't believe his death was accidental. Jerry
Speaker 1: Hellers said as much. He said he thinks that it
Speaker 1: was foul play. One of Easy Ease protegees B G.
Speaker 1: Knockout had a song in My Prime Inleven which he
Speaker 1: wraps the way my big homie went down. He didn't
Speaker 1: deserve it to say he died of AIDS, but Easy
Speaker 1: was cold murdered. Another Easy Ease Ruthless Records mentees M. C.
Speaker 1: Frau believes he was given tainted acupuncture needles, which is
Speaker 1: something I've never heard of. But the general consensus is
Speaker 1: that people feel that Sugar Knight, that human lightning rod
Speaker 1: for murder conspiracies, was involved, and Sugar didn't really help
Speaker 1: his case when he gave an appearance after getting out
Speaker 1: of jail in two thousand three on Jimmy Kimmel Live.
Speaker 1: Have you seen this? Yeah, I mean he goes on
Speaker 1: and like, by the way, like this conspiracy theory just
Speaker 1: seems ridiculous. Like he's being shot with HIV with like
Speaker 1: a tainted it's pretty hypodermic needle. It doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1: But then you have Sugar Knight going on Jimmy Kimmel
Speaker 1: Live and like basically confirming it. I mean he says
Speaker 1: they have a new thing out they get blood from
Speaker 1: somebody with AIDS and they shoot you with it. That's
Speaker 1: a slow death, the easy thing, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: God Like, what a good dude, by the way, what
Speaker 1: what what? What a gentleman? I mean, Look, I I'm
Speaker 1: inclined to believe that he was trolling with that. I
Speaker 1: don't really think that he killed Easy, um, And if
Speaker 1: he had, I don't think he would have like joked
Speaker 1: about it on Jimmy Kimmel on Jimmy Kimmel that the
Speaker 1: smartest thing to do if that were actually true. I
Speaker 1: think what is definitely beyond doubt here is that I
Speaker 1: think for Dre it became very important after Easy he died,
Speaker 1: that he essentially changed the narrative of their relationship because again,
Speaker 1: you had this moment in the early nineties where Drey
Speaker 1: and Easy were really defined by this bitter public conflict
Speaker 1: that they had, and again really by those songs on
Speaker 1: the Chronic I really think that those songs did more
Speaker 1: than anything to sort of like fix the public's perception
Speaker 1: of like what was going on between these two guys.
Speaker 1: So just as Dre defined Easy in his records, he
Speaker 1: also tried to kind of redefine Easy on his subsequent
Speaker 1: records and music videos, like there's that video for I
Speaker 1: Need a Doctor from eleven where he's like it shows
Speaker 1: Dr Dre like standing at Easy's grave and like the
Speaker 1: idea basically of the videos that like Easy Ease, Like
Speaker 1: this Saint and Dr Dre has just been struggling for
Speaker 1: so many years with grief over Easy Ease death, and look,
Speaker 1: I don't want to call into question his grief. I'm
Speaker 1: sure that he felt a lot of different emotions about
Speaker 1: Easy after he died, and losing a friend, especially at
Speaker 1: such a young age, must have been difficult. But maybe
Speaker 1: this is just the cynic in me. There did seem
Speaker 1: to be sort of a self serving aspect to this,
Speaker 1: where by using this specter of Easy e that Drey
Speaker 1: in some way was also making himself look noble in
Speaker 1: this music video, which, by the way, that music video
Speaker 1: is ridiculous, Like that is such a silly music video,
Speaker 1: and like that song also, I think it's like pretty trash.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it just seemed almost like he was using
Speaker 1: Easy as like a convenient symbol to express his own
Speaker 1: sort of like angst and milk that for dramatic effect
Speaker 1: in this video. I still feel weird about the m
Speaker 1: W A film straight out of Compton. I know you
Speaker 1: and I feel differently about this. I feel like it
Speaker 1: was almost another way that Drey tried to rewrite the narrative,
Speaker 1: because I thought the Easy was portrayed as likable but
Speaker 1: kind of naive, and in the film Dre kind of
Speaker 1: he's the one motivating a lot of choices. I mean,
Speaker 1: Dre gives him the idea to for Ruthless Records in
Speaker 1: the movie, and the record boys in the hood themselves.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Everything in the movie to me seems
Speaker 1: like it was Drey's idea, and I think in real
Speaker 1: life that wasn't true. I mean, Easy was the one
Speaker 1: driving the ship, So I don't know. It's hard because
Speaker 1: Drey and Q both produced straight out of Compton, and
Speaker 1: Easy isn't there to tell his sides, you know. In
Speaker 1: a way, I thought it was kind of their way
Speaker 1: of rewriting the narrative a bit. Yeah. I mean again,
Speaker 1: this idea of Drey, and I guess in this instance
Speaker 1: Cube being self serving. I definitely think there's an issue there.
Speaker 1: Although I think my issue with the movie in terms
Speaker 1: of the relationship with Easy is just like how I
Speaker 1: think it kind of whitewashes again the genuine conflict that
Speaker 1: was going on, because I think in the movie, yeah,
Speaker 1: Drey has perceived as the protagonist, and maybe that can
Speaker 1: be perceived as like a slight on Easy, But again
Speaker 1: I think Easy for the most part is like a
Speaker 1: pretty likable guy in the film. And it also, I
Speaker 1: think really shows the friendship that existed between these guys
Speaker 1: and really puts the emphasis on that, and you don't
Speaker 1: really see all the negative stuff that happened. And you know, again,
Speaker 1: is that a self serving whitewash or is it someone
Speaker 1: who is trying to put his past behind him and
Speaker 1: focus on the good things and not try to sort
Speaker 1: of exacerbate and and the conflicts and picking out old scars.
Speaker 1: You know, I mean it's probably a little bit of both.
Speaker 1: And while you know, the music historian and me the
Speaker 1: lover of feuds, you know, doesn't like it when people
Speaker 1: whitewash the real conflicts that happened. I can understand how,
Speaker 1: you know, decades after the fact, you just want to
Speaker 1: remember your friend in a positive way and not well
Speaker 1: on all that old negativity. We're gonna take a quick
Speaker 1: break to get a word from our sponsor before we
Speaker 1: get two more rivals. All right, we've reached a part
Speaker 1: of our episode where we give the pro side of
Speaker 1: each part of the rivalry. Will do the pro Doctor
Speaker 1: Dre side first? I mean, look, Dr Dre, he needs
Speaker 1: no introduction. He is one of the great hip hop
Speaker 1: producers of all time, maybe the greatest. He was the
Speaker 1: sonic architect of those class and w A records, and
Speaker 1: of course he's the guy behind the Chronic, one of
Speaker 1: the great albums of the nineteen nineties. Also, you know,
Speaker 1: I think he was right on some level to be
Speaker 1: mad at Easy for how he was unfairly compensated early on,
Speaker 1: though I think in the end he definitely got his
Speaker 1: revenge from a pr standpoint. You know, again, I think
Speaker 1: that like when we think about this revelry, first and foremost,
Speaker 1: we think of the Funk with Dre da video. I mean,
Speaker 1: to me, that is like the defining document of what
Speaker 1: this revelry was. Even though it's incredibly unfair to Easy.
Speaker 1: Dre had the loudest microphone, so he got to write
Speaker 1: history and basically make his friend look like up a phone,
Speaker 1: even though again in retrospect, after Easy he died, he
Speaker 1: tried to rewrite that history I mean, like you said,
Speaker 1: Dr Dre pretty much invented the West Coast hip hop
Speaker 1: sound genius level producer who excels at making beats through
Speaker 1: live instrumentation, which allows for greater musical flexibility that translates
Speaker 1: his artists message and meaning better. He's elevated the likes
Speaker 1: of Snoop Dogg and Eminem, the Game, Kendrick and fifty
Speaker 1: Cent through his mentorship, and he's bazillionaire through his media
Speaker 1: empire and headphones. Just incredible. Figure. What he lacks in
Speaker 1: ice Cube's lyricism, he makes up for in his sonic scope.
Speaker 1: Absolute genius. Yeah, I wonder if he's going to be
Speaker 1: ultimately remembered more as a headphone magnate than a music producer,
Speaker 1: since that's been his gig for the past many years.
Speaker 1: Going over the pro Easy East Side. You know, while
Speaker 1: Dre was the musical force behind n w A and
Speaker 1: Ice Cube was the lyrical force, I think Easy for
Speaker 1: Me represented the idea of n w A. You know,
Speaker 1: he was the guy who actually lived the life. And
Speaker 1: I still feel like he had like one of the
Speaker 1: coolest voices in hip hop at that time, and he
Speaker 1: had like a really charismatic persona where he had a
Speaker 1: danger to him, but I also feel like he had
Speaker 1: kind of like a lovable aspect, maybe because he was
Speaker 1: like this short guy with a Jerry Curl hair cut.
Speaker 1: You know, there was something about him that like he
Speaker 1: could be menacing, but he was also like kind of
Speaker 1: like the cute gangster next door. So as a child
Speaker 1: of like the late eighties and early nineties, I'm always
Speaker 1: gonna have love for Easy, I always feel, like you know,
Speaker 1: with the Beach Boys, they always said Dennis Wilson was
Speaker 1: sort of the soul of the band because he was
Speaker 1: the one who served, like even if he wasn't the
Speaker 1: most musically gifted, he was sort of the one who
Speaker 1: lived that life. Like you said, I think that's easy
Speaker 1: ease role in this group. And you know, I mean
Speaker 1: without easy putting the other ruthless records and enlisting Jerry
Speaker 1: Heller to help them navigate the music industry, I don't
Speaker 1: think n w A would have had the cultural impact
Speaker 1: that they did. And I mean sure he wasn't the
Speaker 1: mastermind of the sound or the words, but I think
Speaker 1: he was the one who ran the ship and kept
Speaker 1: everything in line. And like I said earlier, he was
Speaker 1: essentially a businessman who rapped, and those solo artistic output
Speaker 1: isn't very impressive. He discovered acts like bone thugs and
Speaker 1: harmony and dressed up and in his lifetime he was
Speaker 1: I think arguably the most successful of the nw A
Speaker 1: members from a financial standpoint, starting his own company with
Speaker 1: his own money and owning a sizeable chunk of Dr
Speaker 1: Dre's output. Uh and you know, plus and we're being
Speaker 1: extremely petty, he never cave to Dre, you know, I
Speaker 1: mean he was his own hand to the end. That's
Speaker 1: the thing about this is that you know, if we
Speaker 1: assume that, you know, for whatever sas and that they
Speaker 1: didn't actually reconcile, you know that Dre is just telling
Speaker 1: this story about them reconciling. But Easy was actually like
Speaker 1: that he was still angry and even when he was
Speaker 1: in a coma, he was angry at Dr Dre. Then like, yeah,
Speaker 1: he did win because he never gave in to Dre,
Speaker 1: and Dre ended up saying all these nice things about
Speaker 1: him after he died. So maybe that was like the
Speaker 1: ultimate like winner move for like Easy, like I'm gonna
Speaker 1: actually die in order to win this rivalry. So that's
Speaker 1: one theory here maybe that puts Easy out ahead. If
Speaker 1: we look at these two guys together, I think, you know,
Speaker 1: on this show, I think we've seen a lot of
Speaker 1: examples of two rivals who existed in the same group
Speaker 1: who for all of their fighting, they ended up complimenting
Speaker 1: each other really well. And I think this is another
Speaker 1: example of that. Like where obviously with Dre, he was
Speaker 1: a great producer, but you know, maybe he was kind
Speaker 1: of like a nerdy guy early on, and he wouldn't
Speaker 1: have been able to make it in a gangster rap
Speaker 1: group if it weren't for someone like easy E who
Speaker 1: had the drive and he also had the backstory that
Speaker 1: could give that group the authenticity that it needed. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I just seemed like they had a great partnership for
Speaker 1: the short time they were together. Yeah, without Drey's talent,
Speaker 1: Easy when they made it without Easy focus, I don't
Speaker 1: think Drey would have made it either. You know, Jordan
Speaker 1: have to say that, like, as we reach another end
Speaker 1: of of a Rival's episode that I think this is
Speaker 1: such a great opportunity for you to express yourself. I
Speaker 1: never know when it's coming. I wait, I wait with
Speaker 1: bated breath for the entire episode that that felt a
Speaker 1: little more hackney than usual. I feel like I do
Speaker 1: like a long set up for it, and I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if the payoff was worth it, but you know,
Speaker 1: it's part of what we do on this show now.
Speaker 1: I feel like there's the fans out there that want
Speaker 1: the pun at the end. Even though I don't want
Speaker 1: to do the pun, I'm doing it for the fans.
Speaker 1: So hopefully you all enjoyed that terrible pun. You are
Speaker 1: a chronic punner, Stephen. Oh there we go, We got that. Okay,
Speaker 1: thank you for listening to this episode of Rivals. We
Speaker 1: will be back with more beefs and feuds and long
Speaker 1: swimming resentments next week. Rivals is a production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. The executive producers are Shawn Titone and Noel Brown.
Speaker 1: Supervising producers are Taylor Chicogne and Tristan McNeil. The producer
Speaker 1: is Joel hat Stat. I'm Jordan run Tug. I'm Stephen Hyden.
Speaker 1: If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave
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