The Rise of The Studio Guru (It’s Mike Dillard’s Fault)

I Remember Vividly The First Time I Heard N.W.A....

 I, like a lot of other young, African-American teenagers who were socially and culturally conscious, was both fascinated and revolted at the same time.

I was revolted because some of the ideas being presented in their music were waaaay too “ghetto” and waaaay too negative for me.  Yep, like a lot of other people, I took it waaaay too seriously at first. 

But their passion and spirit was infectious, their subversive, rebellious vibe was irresistible, and the beats were just undeniably f----n’ dope! 

Even when I tried, it was absolutely impossible for me to ever listen to the track "Straight Outta  Compton" without being overcome with pure, arm swinging, genital holding, gangsta swagger.

There was only one, tiny little problem:  Dr. Dre.

The Tiny Little Problem in Gangsta’s Paradise

You see, because my best friend was a DJ (and I was a rapper, but that's another story…) I remembered the good Dr. from The World-Class Wrecking Cru.  You know, back when he was wearing makeup with a slicked back Jheri curl?

So let's just say that from the very beginning I knew Dre's vivid tales of personally carjacking fools and "straight gang bangin’" were probably recent creations of shall we say...  poetic license. 

In spite of NWA's massive success, this would eventually become one of the first and most infamous examples of the "studio gangsta" phenomenon, which to explain it colloquially, basically meant a buncha cats running into the recording studio and rapping convincingly and in the first-person affirmative about a bunch of shit they never did.

Little did I know that same phenomenon would be running rampant two decades later in another industry I love.  And it's all because of that damn Mike Dillard.

Read the rest of the article and find out why it's Mike Dillard's fault on the Enlightened High Income Networker blog here...