Dr Dre twice revolutionised hiphop, first as a member of N.W.A. and again with The Chronic solo album in 1992. Despite selling over 20 million records, and having production credits on albums by Snoop Doggy Dogg, Tupac Shakur and Eminem, he's still not happy: "There's always been talk about whether or not I can still hold my own, whether I'm still good enough," he says. "I mean, how many platinum records do you want?"
Bizzarely, or maybe not, the godfather of gangsta rap is sitting in the middle of a boxing ring in Brixton, hours before he goes on stage in the nearby Brixton Academy to a reception that can only be described as Tyson-esque. His new album, 2001, has been a huge seller, still floating around the top 20 charts on both sides of the Atlantic, but for the moment all he's concerned about is people calling him on his underground credibility.
"This is my `shut the f . .k up' album," he grins. "For a while back there I had toned things down. I thought I'd take the mature way, but people were getting on my case telling me I had to get hardcore again." In short this means he's back to songs about weed, women and guns again. Born Andre Young in the South Central area of Los Angeles, Dre formed Niggers With Attitude with M.C. Ren, Ice Cube and Eazy E. in the mid 1980s. Their first single, Boyz 'N' The Hood, marked out their ghetto and gangsta concerns and shortly afterwards they became the first group to receive a threatening letter from the FBI - in response to one of their songs about police brutality.
NWA were a full-on band, and lyrics about oral sex, killing and prostitution led the British government to use the Obscene Publications Act to seize copies of their Efil4zaggin album. When NWA imploded, Dre became the in-house producer on Ruthless Records before moving to Death Row Records to join up with the controversial Marion "Suge" Knight. The Chronic (named after his favourite strain of marijuana) was largely responsible for pushing ghetto rap into the homes of white suburbia and onto the top of the Billboard chart.
He's adamant, though, that he's no spokesman for the ghetto lifestyle: "I'm not trying to send out messages or anything," he says. "I just basically do hardcore hip-hop and try to add a touch of dark comedy here and there. A lot of times, the media just takes this and tries to make it into something else when it's all entertainment first. Any person that listens to these records and wants to imitate them is an idiot, unless they just want to imitate the fact that it's a good record. You shouldn't take it too seriously."
Studiously avoiding all questions about the East Coast/West Coast rap wars (and the deaths of Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. - "I've had some close calls myself over the years") he's more into talking up the rap superstar tour he's currently doing with Ice Cube and Snoop Doggy Dogg in the US, which goes out under the name "Not Those Niggers Again". "It's a NWA reunion, but not really. We just felt we had something more to say, something more to add, and it's a welcome return to our roots."
In a genre that usually measures its career span in months rather than years, Dr Dre's continued involvement in the upper reaches is a testimony to his talent and understanding of shifting hip-hop concerns.
Answering, for the millionth time, a question about the dodgy use of language in his lyrics, he says: "I understand why some people find it objectionable but it's just that I love hard-core; that's what I'm good at. You've got your Richard Pryors and your Bill Cosbys and it's pretty clear which one I'm more like. I mean, when I listened to Richard Pryor when I was younger, it was the shock value that appealed to me.
"It's just like Pulp Fiction. I don't understand how people can love that movie and then say my records are bad. My records are straight-up dark comedy."
The new Dr Dre single is a duet with Eminem, Forgot About Dre. The album, 2001 is on the Interscope label
