The 25 Best Dr. Dre Beats

The best beats from one of the greatest hip-hop producers of all time.

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Complex Original

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What exactly was the moment when Dr. Dre went from being a rap producer to the all-seeing oracle of the hip-hop industry? The crucial transformation in a career of crucial transformations can be traced to Dre’s initial partnership with Eminem. In 1997, Dre was struggling to make Aftermath relevant following the massive cultural significance of his Death Row recordings. Now the papers were reporting that he was determined to break a blonde emcee from Detroit. It at first seemed ludicrous, the early sign of an unavoidable decline. It turned out to be just the opposite.

Dre’s endorsement of Eminem became the most successful bet of the producer’s life, surpassing even Straight Outta Compton and The Chronic, two of the most seminal and individualistic album-length statements in hip-hop history. In discovering, grooming and marketing Eminem (with the help of his industry shaker, Jimmy Iovine) Dre confirmed that he was in possession of powers beyond the musical. His work with Eminem led into the release of 2001, which renewed his creative license for a new generation and segued into his work with 50 Cent and Game.

Since that time, he has continued to make music but at a much slower rate than 10 or 15 years ago. His beats now feel expensive and important, and it’s sometimes easy to long for the days of “Let Me Ride,” when his music felt more organic and unselfconscious. However, his abilities as a beatmaker have long since been superseded by his presence as a tastemaker. Because of this, the expectations for his new music have gone skyward, and Dre has always made it his mission not only to meet but to exceed the public’s expectations of him.

Detox has become a mythically anticipated album not simply because of Dr. Dre’s production legacy but because he is now regarded as much more of a musical artist—he is a visionary, an artist-maestro who has transcended the stature previously occupied by Phil Spector. Even when he’s not doing anything he exerts more influence on rap music than producers who are active week to week. As we look back over a musical portfolio that spans almost 30 years, the predominant question asked by fans, peers, and industry insiders has shifted from “When will Dre drop his latest?” to “What would Dre do?”

Written by Sam Sweet (All Night Menu)

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25. Eminem "The Real Slim Shady" (2000)

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Producer: Dr. Dre, Tommy Coster
Album: The Marshall Mathers LP
Label: Aftermath, Interscope

In a 1999 episode of Behind the Music, Dre admitted that he knew Eminem's "My Name Is" would be a hit because it was the most annoying song he'd ever heard. That essence of annoyance was used to even greater effect on 2000's "The Real Slim Shady," which transformed the yellow head from Detroit into a global brand.

The song marked Dre's first collaboration with Mike Elizondo, the bassist and multi-instrumentalist who would become his constant collaborator in the years that followed. The inimitable keyboard figure—a loony's tickle of harpsichord—was played by another Dre associate, Tommy Coster, son of famed Santana keyboardist Tom Coster.

Eminem's reflexive anthem inspired hundreds of imitations, the best of which has to be "The Real Sin Savior" by the Pittsburgh-based evangelical group ApologetiX: "Will Smith don't gotta discuss the Christian path to salvation/Well, I do—it affects him and affects you too." SMH.

24. N.W.A. "Straight Outta Compton" (1988)

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Producer: Dr. Dre, DJ Yella
Album: Straight Outta Compton
Label: Ruthless, Priority

Why haven't any of the great university marching bands attempted a rendition of "Straight Outta Compton?" Please don't tell us it's because it happens to be a song about the magnificent of the AK-47. It would be perfect for one of those big Southern state college bands, the ones with 300 people, that sometimes proffer crushing arrangements of Lil Scrappy songs.

The first apotheosis of Dre's production knowledge, "Straight Outta Compton" stacks percussive segments from at least five different works of funk-Ronnie Hudson, Wilson Pickett, Funkadelic, the Gap Band, and an obscure D.C. soul outfit called the Winstons—and yet it functions as a wholly cohesive attack: A cyclical typhoon of gutbucket drums and ungodly fanfare. Says Eazy: "Give a little gust of wind and I'm jetting, but leave a memory no one'll be forgetting." It's enough to give you visions of a N.W.A. halftime show.

23. Snoop Dogg f/ Nate Dogg & Xzibit "Bitch Please" (1999)

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Producer: Dr. Dre
Album: No Limit Top Dogg
Label: No Limit

What "La Cumparsita" is to the Tango, what Chubby Checker is to The Twist: That's what "Bitch Please" is to the C-Walk. It's got that low center of gravity combined with the loose-boned swing. It is the perfect analog to the dance itself, in which there is an abundance of fluid movement, all of which takes place exclusively within the lower third of the body. How come nobody called WC for this track?

With "Bitch Please" Dre not only created the ideal Crip Walking weather, but also one of his most unique hooks. The fact that rappers from Cube to Snoop to Eminem to 50 always seemed to come up with their best hooks on Dre beats is one of the producer's great mystical powers. The song was a breakout moment for Xzibit but Snoop is preternaturally comfortable in this setting. A highlight of his tenure with No Limit, his hook here is half-Juvenile, half-Jamaican.

22. Eve ft/ Gwen Stefani "Let Me Blow Ya Mind" (2001)

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Producer: Dr. Dre, Scott Storch
Album: Scorpion
Label: Ruff Ryders, Interscope

Despite his reputation as one of rap's most infamous misogynists, Dre had a long history of collaborating with strong females, from J.J. Fad and Michel'le to Jewell and the Lady of Rage. His feminine sensibilities reached a peak on "Let Me Blow Your Mind." It's impossible to imagine two males handling this composition with the sophistication of Eve and Gwen Stefani.

Imagine if he'd given the beat to Xzibit. It would have been like placing a porcelain vase in the hands of an MMA fighter. The song is slippery and relaxed and funky but it displays the flawless texture of fresh-blown glass. Along with "Xxxplosive," which preceded it by two years, "Let Me Blow Your Mind" is the culmination of one of Dre's sonic signatures: An immaculate, airless funk, as spotless as the leather upholstery in a factory Lexus.

21. Snoop Dogg "Who Am I (What's My Name)?" (1993)

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Producer: Dr. Dre
Album: Doggystyle
Label: Death Row Records, Interscope Records, Atlantic Records

In his reprisal of the bassline from Funkadelic's "(Not Just) Knee Deep," Dre was not simply delivering on the public's demand for more Chronic, but rather expanding on what he saw as the fathomless possibility of George Clinton's groove. "What's My Name?" is essentially the same song as "Dre Day," but with hefty portions of Clinton's "Atomic Dog" interpolated into what was already an extraordinarily accommodating bassline.

It's hard to overstate just how hungry the public was for more Snoop in late 1993, and "What's My Name" delivered on all the potential star power of "Nuthin' But a 'G' Thang." At a time when "Dre Day" still fresh in the memory of the American public, Snoop's solo debut single not only recharged the public's affection for the original song but deepened it.

It is rare that a rap star emerges so fully formed and yet so raw and unselfconscious. The song's momentum grows from the interplay between the monstrous bassline and the supple flow of the former Calvin Broadus, whose stage name alone was memorable enough to constitute the hookline of this eternal party starter.

20. Game f/ 50 Cent "Westside Story" (2004)

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Producer: Dr. Dre, Scott Storch
Album: The Documentary
Label: Aftermath, G-Unit, Interscope

In 1994, Dre's beats were instantly recognizable for the sound of the Minimoog Voyager, which created the "gangsta whine" that became emblematic of the West Coast hip-hop ethos. Ten years later, in 2004, the chunky Steinway piano of "Westside Story" was as much an insignia of Game's West Coast credentials as the whistling synth had been for Snoop ten years prior.

Rolling Stone described the song as "an L.A. version of 'In Da Club'" but Game's song is a much more unnerving piece of work, devoid of the sociability that made 50's single a crossover smash. It is true that the songs share one of Dre's essential rhythmic principles: A forward-walking tempo with an irrational tilt to it. It is the sound of a fighter shuffling to the ring, the sound of revenge.

19. Snoop Dogg f/ Master P, Nate Dogg, Butch Cassidy, & Tha Eastsidaz "Lay Low" (2000)

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Producer: Dr. Dre, Mike Elizondo
Album: The Last Meal
Label: No Limit, Priority, EMI Records

The Chronic had almost as big an effect on New Orleans as it did on California, which is why Snoop could so effortlessly reintegrate Dre into the No Limit family when he signed with the label in 1998, after leaving Death Row. All four minutes of "Lay Low" revolve around a single three-note pattern—as easy for any youngster to hammer out on the piano as the riff from Beethoven's Fifth.

It is testament to Dre's genius that he could convert something so inherently simple into a song that is utterly ingratiating. Of course, it didn't hurt to include Nate Dogg, who delivers what is probably the most soulful hook about dicks in a career full of soulful hooks about dicks. Like Beethoven, Dre is regarded as a maestro but he doesn't get enough credit for the possibility he found in minimalism.

18. Dr. Dre & Ice Cube "Natural Born Killaz" (1994)

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Producer: Dr. Dre, Sam Sneed, Suge Knight
Album: Murder Was The Case
Label: Death Row, Interscope

"Natural Born Killaz" is emblematic of Death Row in its late period of malicious opulence. Improbably, Sam Sneed and "executive everything" Suge Knight share production credit. There is the sense that this was a period during which every Death Row song was made with about 30 people standing over the studio console.

It had been six years since Dre and Cube had appeared on a song together. At the time of their release, "Straight Outta Compton" and "Fuck the Police" constituted a frenzied onslaught, but in comparison to "Natural Born Killaz" those early hits appear positively lean. By the time this song was made, Dre's G-funk recipe had become thick and volatile. It is not so much a beat at it is a poisonous stew of G-funk's constituent parts, a churning concoction that would soon boil over in its pot and burn down the entire label.

17. Dr. Dre f/ Eminem "Forgot About Dre" (1999)

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Producer: Dr. Dre, Mel-Man
Album: 2001
Label: Aftermath, Interscope

Between its squiggly melodic ticks and faux-elegiac strings, "Forgot About Dre" is not quite like anything else the producer has ever put out, and yet it feels like a quintessential example of the producer's style. Though it is obvious that Dre had been making a study of Timbaland—whose early work with Missy Eliott has a similar snaky smooth insistence about it—this song betrayed some of his archetypal traits.

For one, "Forgot About Dre" has the Doctor's clockwork bearing—its pacing is reliable as a Swiss army watch. The song's great pleasure is the tension generated between the measured precision of the beat and the utter unpredictability of Eminem's rapping. You get the feeling that had Dre simply decided to loop the track for 90 minutes Marshall would have continued to uncover new ways to flow over it.

16. Game f/ 50 Cent "How We Do" (2004)

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Producer: Dr. Dre, Mike Elizondo
Album: The Documentary
Label: Aftermath, G-Unit, Interscope

Another one for the "can it really be this simple" column. Dre's penchant for insidiously reductive melodies peaked with "How We Do." At four notes, the melody is just a hair more complicated than "Lay Low" or "In Da Club" and yet it feels like the most resolutely basic thing Dre ever concocted. It is so diabolically catchy that it almost attains the contagiousness of a nursery rhyme.

Its simplicity is perfectly suited to Game and 50 Cent, two of the most brilliantly dumbed-down rappers of the mid-2000s, which were the most brilliantly dumbed-down years in rap music history. The snap music coming out of Atlanta was about to become all the rage and in retrospect it's hard not to read "How We Do" as a reflection—or more probably, a premonition—of the pared-down club rap trend. Even before the public knew what it wanted, Dre was already feeding it to them.

15. 50 Cent "Heat" (2003)

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Producer: Dr. Dre
Album: Get Rich Or Die Tryin
Label: Aftermath, Interscope, Shady

"Heat" is not only one of the most hostile displays in the career of America's most famously hostile rapper—it is easily one of the most relentless and truculent compositions of Dre's career. To illustrate 50's expression of unfettered animosity, Dre returned to one of his favored techniques: Strike a few major chords in succession and then step back and let the space in the song work its magic on the listener's nerves.

In this instance, that space is filled with the sound of giddy assault rifles and slews of 50's most barbarous boasts: "If you was smart you'd be shook of me/I'd get tired of looking for ya, spray ya momma crib and let ya ass look for me." This song's one and only desire is to leave as much shrapnel as possible embedded in the body and then stomp out the remains.

14. The Firm f/ AZ, Nas & Nature "Phone Tap" (1997)

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Producer: Dr. Dre, Chris Taylor
Album: The Album
Label: Aftermath, Interscope, MCA

Of the many techniques that Dre used to disconnect from his Death Row past, his most audacious might have been collaborating with The Firm on their first and only full-length in 1997. After all, Foxy Brown, AZ, Nature and Nas symbolized the East Coast establishment that Death Row had persecuted only a few years earlier. But by late 1997 hip-hop had entered a new epoch.

2Pac and Biggie were dead and the dueling coasts had begun a mutual assimilation of would become the dominant paradigm of late 1990s rap: Corporate prosperity. "Phone Tap" perfectly illustrates the luxurious criminal aesthetic the Firm was after. The beat, however, could never be mistaken for the work of an East Coast mind. While impressively stealthy, there is too much tilt to its thump, and too much blues in those keyboards that bleed through the cracks.

13. The Lady Of Rage "Afro Puffs" (1994)

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Producer: Dr. Dre
Album: Above The Rim: The Soundtrack
Label: Interscope, Death Row Records, The Atlantic Group

In the early 1970s Ebony would run advertisements for afro puffs in the back of the magazine, next to other extinct wig models like the "Soul Wig" and "Lionessshaggy." They were the perfect symbol of the wild style and individualism of the Blaxploitation era, which was one of Dre's principle sources of inspiration during the Death Row era.

In the same way that Dre's Funkadelic obsession became an emblem for "Let Me Ride" and Snoop's Seventies-style blowout became a new symbol of ghetto bravura in the video for "Gin & Juice," The Lady of Rage's "Afro Puffs" connected black America's ill history to an even iller future.

For the beat, Dre utilized two Johnny Guitar Watson samples, amplifying an already-potent level of immoral majesty. The result was a historical funk tune, thick and murky. In the middle of it all was the Lady of Rage, rocking rough and stuff. In this moment, there was no one in rap—male or female—more large and in charge.

12. Dr. Dre f/ Snoop Dogg "Fuck wit Dre Day (And Everybody's Celebratin')" (1992)

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Producer: Dr. Dre
Album: The Chronic
Label: Death Row, Interscope, Priority

Chris Rock once said he preferred Doggystyle to The Chronic, because, while the latter album was sonically impeccable, "It's hard to drive around singing songs about 'Eazy-E can eat a big fat dick.'" Actually, that's not true. This song is such a contagion that after only a few listens millions of people had memorized jimmy jokes that Tim Dog's mother might not have liked.

It's as though Dre bored a hole in the collective psyche with the bassline from Funkadelic's "(Not Just) Knee Deep"—decelerated just enough to make it malevolent—and then filled it with schoolyard taunts about his enemies. This is one of those songs where it could so easily not work—it's about Snoop putting his wang through the hole in Uncle Luke's teeth—but there was such freshness in Dre's music and such frisson in his newfound partnership with Snoop that everyone but Chris Rock forgot that it's anatomically impossible to put one's nuts on another man's tonsils.

11. N.W.A. "Fuck Tha Police" (1988)

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Producer: Dr. Dre, DJ Yella
Album: Straight Outta Compton
Label: Ruthless, Priority, EMI Records

"Fuck Tha Police" remains the single most powerful political statement in hip-hop history, precisely because it came from a group that had absolutely no political pretensions. While Public Enemy and Boogie Down Productions had self-conscious political agendas, these five young men from South Central Los Angeles—barely out of their teens—spoke the truth of their experience without regard for its place in a larger dialogue.

Their message was immediate and enraged, and it was imperative that they speak it because it was imperative to their lives and their existence, and that self-concern alone was enough. The difference between "Fucka Tha Police" and, say, Public Enemy's "Fight the Power" is the difference between what Rosa Parks did and what Martin Luther King did. One took a stand on behalf of an aggrieved nation; one took a stand on behalf of herself, simply because she was sick and tired of the injustice.

N.W.A.'s signature song is still venomous, and Dre's furious beat is the torpedo in which all that juice is contained. There is so much gasoline in this song that the fires it started have not yet stopped burning.

10. Dr. Dre f/ Hittman, Kurupt, Nate Dogg and Six-Two "Xxplosive" (1999)

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Producer: Dr. Dre, Mel-Man
Album: 2001
Label: Aftermath, Interscope

Of course, the one Dr. Dre that cannot be called explosive is called "Xxxplosive." Perhaps the prettiest tune in Dre's entire catalog, "Xxxplosive" is built on a sample of "Bumpy's Lament," an instrumental lamentation for the ghetto from Isaac Hayes' canonical 1971 Shaft soundtrack.

Except that Dre didn't actually use the Shaft soundtrack—he used an even more obscure cover version by the long-forgotten East Coast R&B group Soul Mann and the Brothers. Soul Mann's version was even more evocative than Hayes', putting the emphasis solely on a figure of spectral xylophone.

Dre took that line and did what he'd been doing since the days of N.W.A.: He customized it like a hot rod, loading a heap of extra muscle into what was already a classic body. Notice his masterful use of dead space: This was a hit song and it includes seconds of pure silence. By the time Nate Dogg arrives to moan softly atop the xylophone melody, the tune feels less like a sex party and more like a late night elegy to a soundless city.

9. 2Pac f/ Dr. Dre & Roger Troutman "California Love" (1995)

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Producer: Dr. Dre
Album: All Eyez On Me
Label: Death Row, Interscope

Who but Dr. Dre could take a song by Joe Cocker and turn into an anthem of the South Los Angeles streets? "California Love" feels like the grand midpoint of Dre's career, the crossroads at which the resolute funk of N.W.A. and the queasy G-funk of Death Row slides into the sleek and calculated orchestrations of the Aftermath epoch.

"Say what you say," says Tupac. "But give me that bomb beat from Dre. Let me serenade the streets of L.A." There is a pied piper quality to "California Love," reinforced by the godlike presence of Roger Troutman, who is to Dre's career what Moses was to the Old Testament, and whose musical spirit hovers over this song like Pacific thunderclouds over the gridded metropolis.

8. Above The Law "Murder Rap" (1990)

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Producer: Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, Laylaw
Album: Livin' Like Hustlers
Label: Ruthless Records

"Murder Rap" remains the single best drum part Dre ever cooked up: A tribal onslaught that is part military drum corps and part Clyde Stubblefield mojo. The backwards percussion effect makes it seem like the song is hurtling forward and at the same time being sucked back into another dimension.

Where Dre would soon become world renowned for his basslines—think "Nuthin' But a G Thang," "In Da Club" and "The Real Slim Shady"—"Murder Rap" contains one single bass note, but it is dropped with such detonative power and ruthlessness that it might very well be his most impressive low-end accomplishment. Says Cold 187Um: "I'm not a hero or zero but a Leo in stereo and this is not a demo." It certainly isn't. This is a song to bust through deadbolts and bring down buildings.

7. Snoop Doggy Dogg "Gin & Juice" (1993)

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Producer: Dr. Dre
Album: Doggystyle
Label: Death Row, Interscope, Atlantic

The reason that Snoop became Snoop is because, like Elvis Presley, he was fun and dangerous at the same time. Isn't that the essence "Gin & Juice"? Now pushing 20, the song still emits an aura of licentiousness, malfeasance, and malice, but you can't bring yourself to leave the party, and you don't and shouldn't, because "Gin & Juice" is the best party that rap music has every thrown.

If "Nuthin But a G Thang" takes place at the dawn of the evening, when the drop-tops are still cruising the boulevard, then "Gin & Juice" is the sound of six hours later, when everyone has reached a state of gurgling inebriation and no one is saying "no" to anything.

What a heady blend this is: Piano, synth, bass, drums, and the indispensable "gangsta whine." It's a George McCrae sample, sure enough, and Dre undoubtedly pays tribute to the seedy atmosphere of McCrae's original, but this beat was another beast altogether. Like so many of his greatest works—especially from the 1992-1995 period—"Gin & Juice" is a work of lushness and sublime density, and yet it flows forth as though poured from God's own liquor bottle.

6. Dr. Dre "Still D.R.E." (2001)

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Producer: Dr. Dre, Mel-Man, Scott Storch
Album: 2001
Label: Aftermath, Interscope

"Still D.R.E." was crucial because it was the total renewal of the Dre brand. Just as "Dre Day" completed restarted Dre's career following the uptempo singles of N.W.A., "Still D.R.E." recalibrated his sonic signature for yet another generation of rap fans. This time it was neither the explosive rhythms of Straight Outta Compton, nor the blunted shuffles of the Death Row days. It was a new vision of the indigenous L.A. freeway cadence—an expansive glide with detailing that gleamed like chrome in the sun.

The fact that Dre and Snoop could reconvene on a track with a very similar purpose to "Dre Day" without emulating their past accomplishments was huge—not only for Dre's career for hip-hop at large. "Still D.R.E." proved that there was prosperity in reinvention. It was possible to build on your history without demolishing it completely.

Just ask Snoop and Busta Rhymes, two rappers who emulated Dre and thrived in the coming decade, where many of their peers vanished. Of course, not many possess Dre's creative stamina or his business savvy, let alone his ability to combine the two. Among his many talents is timing: He not only understands how to construct a beat, but when to introduce it.

5. The D.O.C. "It's Funky Enough" (1989)

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Producer: Dr. Dre
Album: No One Can Do It Better
Label: Ruthless, Atlantic

Though he only released one classic solo album the D.O.C. is probably the hardest emcee with whom Dre ever collaborated. According to his production partner Mel-Man, the Doctor himself is said to have admitted as much behind closed doors.

Recorded and released in 1989, "It's Funky Enough" was one of those West Coast songs that beat New York at its own game. Based on a canonical sample by the kiddie funk performer Foster Sylvers (of the Sylvers), the song is as snarly as anything by Just-Ice and as authoritative as anything by Boogie Down Productions.

In his prime, the D.O.C. could have gone toe-to-toe with LL Cool J, though the Texas-bred rapper had none of the crossover pretensions of Def Jam's heartthrob. "It's Funky Enough" is the stuff of concrete and brick, rather than the greenery and sparkle usually associated with California.

And yet the song boasted something that Ced Gee and Rick Rubin and KRS-One didn't have, something unique to Dre that would recur throughout his career, from "Express Yourself" to "In Da Club": An effortless mechanical fluidity. His beats were—and still are—like machines that function with fewer parts but have been designed to run at twice the efficiency of their competitors.

4. Dr. Dre and Snoop Doggy Dogg "Deep Cover" (1992)

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3. 50 Cent "In Da Club" (2003)

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Producer: Dr. Dre
Album: Get Rich or Die Tryin'
Label: Aftermath Entertainment, Interscope, Shady

The pinnacle of Dre's relationship with Mike Elizondo, "In Da Club" is one of those creations that could either be an accidental jackpot or a laboratory-crafted attempt at the ultimate hip-hop beat. Like a lot of Dre's work, it has an insistence that tugs at the listener. It will not stop baiting you and it is engineered to run forever, like a perpetual motion machine.

Some fans theorize that Elizondo basically created the whole beat and Dre simply put his name on it—there are dozens of such theories for each of Dre's collaborators, for it is easier to believe in a man's fallibility than his everlasting artistic endurance—but this song has Dre's prints all over it. It would have still been a hit with another Dre protégé on it—in fact, it was offered to D12 at one point but they were unsure of how to attack the beat while 50 jumped right on it.

50 brings a certain magnetism that hearkens back to the producer's original partnership with Snoop. In his younger years Snoop embodied the contradictions that would subsequently come to define 50's success: The impeccable combination of slickness and menace, tunefulness and aggression, pop and violence.

2. Eazy-E "Boyz-N-The-Hood" (1986)

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Producer: Dr. Dre
Album: N.W.A. and the Posse
Label: Ruthless Records

"Boyz-N-The-Hood" marks the first big transition in the career of Dr. Dre, as he undertook the seemingly impossible transition from the fast L.A. electro style of the World Class Wrecking Cru to the brutal hood rap of Niggaz Wit Attitudes. There are still shards of the antiquated L.A. electro embedded in "Boyz-N-the-Hood," almost as though Dre smashed on the dance floor the forms of his club music past and reassembled them for a back alley audience in Compton.

You can hear echoes of the Wrecking Cru in the ferocious cuts (an early Dre specialty) and in the twinkling noise that hangs in the air as Eazy delivers his immortal couplet: "Cruising down the street in my six-four/Jocking the bitches, slapping the hoes." Eazy was the first rapper to flow on a Dre beat and even now, 25 years later, "Boyz N The Hood" leaves the listener wishing Eric and Andre had created a whole album together, just the two of them, one rapper and one beatmaker.

Then again, "Boyz-N-The-Hood" is so comprehensive and impeccable-it represents all the potential that would come to fruition over the rest of Dre's career-that the six-minute song feels like a complete album unto itself.

1. Dr. Dre f/ Snoop Doggy Dogg "Nuthin' But A 'G' Thang" (1992)

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Producer: Dr. Dre
Album: The Chronic
Label: Death Row

"Nuthin' But a G Thang" glows because within it there is a system of supernatural alignment. Dre's first big hit of the 1990s embodies the reconciliation of opposing forces: Between the improvised and the crafted; between the rich side of town and the poor side of town; between relevance to a present moment and utter timelessness. All these elements are unified for the four even minutes of "G Thang," which also happens to include the single most intoxicating bassline in all of hip-hop, which is itself a genealogy of basslines.

20 years after its release-on November 12, 1992, a tremor in advance of the earthquake that was The Chronic-we have reached the point where we can safely say that "G Thang" is only going to improve with age. It's never going to be dated. It's never going to sound wrong. Because of its sublime Leon Haywood sample (borrowed wholesale from the 1975 recording, like an untouched Cadillac engine rediscovered in an abandoned garage) the song was vintage as soon as it was released. The fact is it that it's never going to sound anything but ineffably warm and even wholesome-remember this is a rap song that actually encourages the use of condoms.

Play it all day every day and it will not lose an ounce of the excitement that surrounded its original release. At that time, it was a simple song that showed a producer and a rapper on the precipice of enormous change. In "G Thang" Dre created something both familiar and unknowable, an amalgamation that defies staleness, so that each time you break the seal on that bassline all that was old becomes new again.

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