Kevin Reed | Entertainment Editor
“The Defiant Ones” is a documentary based series on HBO, directed by Allen Hughes, centered on the story of Andre Young (Dr. Dre) and Jimmy Iovine starting “Beats by Dre.” The audience gets to see how they both started out in the music business and watch as they go through a rollercoaster of ups and downs on their way up.
Viewers see real videotapes from their early music days and interviews with a huge number of stars and executives to get an in depth look at their lives.
Dr. Dre is one of the godfathers of hip hop. His story starts in Compton, California. He was one of the people who started N.W.A. and went on to produce for some of the best hip hop artists ever. He helped Eazy-E, Snoop Dogg and Eminem start their careers, but his legacy has inspired rappers like Kendrick Lamar.
Iovine started the hugely successful record label, Interscope Records. Throughout his career, Iovine has managed artists like Eminem, U2, Nine Inch Nails, Gwen Stefani and Rico Suave. His influence on the music industry still is relevant to this day. Throughout the series it’s shown that Iovine has a fascination for the stranger artists and believes that what makes an artist strange is their creativity. This was unlike most other record labels at the time who felt their artists should adhere to what society considers normal. In “The Defiant Ones” Steve Berman, the vice chairman of Interscope Records describes a conversation he had with Iovine about the direction of the label: “I walked into Jimmy’s office one day and he said, ‘Steve you know what you problem is?’ And he drew a straight line. ‘That’s you, and you know what we need to bring into your life?’ And he squiggles. ‘We gotta get some of that.’” Iovine had never felt his label never needed to follow the status quo, he even preferred it didn’t.
Many artists make appearances throughout both Dr. Dre’s and Iovine’s stories. My personal favorite introduction of a specific artist was the establishing scene of Eminem. This scene tugged at my emotions because I always saw Dr. Dre and Eminem as the Batman and Robin of early 2000 hip-hop.
Dr. Dre’s career was suffering and the board at Interscope wanted him gone. Then, he discovers a young freestyle rapper — Marshall Mathers — in Detroit and decides to sign him. Against Intescope’s executives opinions, Iovine trusts Dr. Dre and they sign Eminem. Within a year of signing he released “Slim Shady LP” which destroyed the charts. Watching this scene, and seeing the actual moment on tape where Dr. Dre and Eminem first clicked made me feel like I was there and I could feel the magic happening right in front of me.
This miniseries is nothing short of motivating to me. It follows the story of two visionaries who climb from the bottom all the way to the top. They climb and claw their way up through hard work and obsession with their work. Seeing that I felt driven to work that hard in anything I do.
“The Defiant Ones” is an in-depth and immersive documentary that gives the viewer an up-close look at the lives of Doctor Dre and Jimmy Iovine. Throughout each episode, viewers get to know the events of their lives through authentic videotapes and pictures, as well as interviews of the artists and people they interacted with throughout their lives.
After watching this you feel as if you were there in the moment. Both of these men worked relentlessly and ended up changing the world of music entirely. You can feel the emotion in every up and down that goes on in the course of the story. Allen Hughes put this together magnificently and made it personal for the viewers. I highly recommend this series to anyone and it is one of my favorite documentaries.
Contact the author at kreed17@mail.wou.edu
Photo by: www.hbo.com
