Dr. Dre was undergoing medical treatment on Tuesday after being admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center with a possible brain aneurysm, said two sources familiar with his condition.
The legendary rapper and producer who became a music mogul was said to be in stable condition at the Los Angeles hospital after undergoing tests, according to one of the sources who asked not to be named because the person was not authorized to discuss the medical issue.
The rapper, 55, whose real name is Andre Young, gained fame with the NWA from the streets of Compton and became a major producer and co-founder of Beats Electronics, a venture that turned him into a billionaire. After TMZ.com revealed that Dre was hospitalized, NWA co-founder Ice Cube tweeted, “Send your love and prayers.”
Dre, according to a source, was in the intensive care unit at one point.
On Tuesday night, he released a statement on his Instagram account, which said in part: “I am doing very well and receiving excellent care from my medical team. I will be out of the hospital and coming home soon. Shout out to all the great Cedars medical professionals. ”
The medical emergency comes amid an ever-increasing divorce battle with his longtime wife, Nicole Young, who seeks $ 2 million a month in child support and $ 5 million in attorney’s fees.
In the 1980s, Dre commanded the city’s most incendiary act, the NWA, and forced the brutalized discontent of South LA by police on radio and television across the country with singles like “F – tha Police”. The group’s furious and profane lyrics were reinforced by Dre’s ear for the funk edge.
On his 1992 solo album “The Chronic” and his 1993 “Doggystyle”, his album with young Long Beach rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg, he helped perfect the raw and provocative sound of Los Angeles rap, but with an ear from super producer to a hit.
In 1995, he won his first Top 100 charts with Tupac Shakur’s “California Love”, one of the West Coast hip-hop songs.
After leaving the volatile Death Row Records and founding his Aftermath label with Interscope, in 1998 he signed with a young white rapper from Detroit, Eminem. Eminem’s skill and dark, funny lyrics fit Dre’s sensibilities, and the two consolidated hip-hop as the new dominant pop song on the charts.
NWA in March 1989. Back row, from the left: DJ Yella, Dr. Dre and MC Ren (Kings cap). Front, from the left: Ice Cube and Eazy-E.
(Photo by the Los Angeles Times team)
With the success of the 2003 50 Cent LP “Get Rich or Die Tryin ‘”, Dre continued his career as a producer and talent incubator at Aftermath. “Detox”, the long planned sequence of his album “2001”, had years of delays. But an acclaimed comeback with Snoop Dogg at Coachella in 2012 reaffirmed his pivotal role in hip-hop. That legacy was explored in NWA’s hit 2015 biopic, “Straight Outta Compton”.
In the meantime, he built a fledgling headphone company, Beats Electronics, into a dominant consumer technology brand for rap fans. In 2013, Dre donated $ 70 million to USC with fellow music mogul Jimmy Iovine to found USC Jimmy Iovine and the Andre Young Academy for Arts, Technology and the Business of Innovation. In 2014, he sold Beats to Apple for about $ 3 billion, making him one of the richest men in popular music.
On Tuesday night, rapper LL Cool J tweeted that the music producer was “recovering well”. On Instagram, Snoop Dogg added his best wishes: “GET WELL DR DRE WE NEED U CUZ.”