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Sometimes I’m reminded of things (that were retroactively erased from my memory) by consequence of the dreaded Wikipedia Hole. Like a Youtube Hole, one link leads to another and so on until you realize hours have flown by and your initial query was for Boy Meets World. And so I landed at this Dr. Dre video, obviously.

When we think of Dr. Dre, it’s normally within in two specific contexts–The Chronic/Death Row era and the resurgence with Eminem, 50 Cent and his own 2001, but we often overlook what happened in between. Dr. Dre Presents The Aftermath was an oddity not unlike Blood On The Dancefloor in its ill-timed release and sound that unsuccessfully rode nostalgia and a stab at relevance. It’s never regarded as part of the official cannon (not to mention his work on The Firm album). It yielded two singles, though, the Group Therapy track that proposed to rather obnoxiously absorb or undo the East/West beef  back then and “Been There Done That”, where Dre “grows up” and brands the gangsta pose passé with a carefully choreographed tango number. Here’s why it didn’t work.

○ His attempt to rise above that which characterized him during his Death Row tenure had nothing to do with any creative progression. “Been There Done That” is a passive-aggressive device to call Suge Knight a bamma and undermine anything Death Row was doing at the time, which is to say they were coasting on the release of 2Pac’s Makaveli album. But everyone loved 2Pac and were ambivalent about Dre, so he looked desperate.

○ His rapping is horrible and corny. No need for a full paragraph.

○ As for the video itself, well, there are people that can wear a suit and people that should wear a suit. That isn’t to say Dre hasn’t corrected this problem in the present, but can he look any more awkward in this clip? There’s something to be said for posture, and to this day many of my brothers, even as they get older, are compelled to pimp in a suit. Let’s make this clear once and for all: Pimping in a suit is sleazy. Pimps do it because they’re pimps and are by definition sleazy characters but no one, not even them, can pull that off without looking completely comical.

○ While the dance number seemed novel at the time, I find it hard to believe his former compatriots weren’t laughing their collective asses off. “You’re so grown now you’re doing the tango? Nigga you gay.” Look at it again and consider the above mentioned points and elements involved. Here we have scene after scene of contrived opulence that culminates in a former gangster rapper doing the tango. It’s rather like hanging a half-million dollar chandelier from the ceiling of a crack house.

The save at the very end where it turns out to be a dream somewhat makes up for this hilarity but not really. The real save came with 2001, a de facto and worthy follow-up to his work at Death Row. The timing was perfect and we’d all forgiven him for (or forgot, rather) The Aftermath compilation, The Firm, and the horrible “Zoom” song with LL Cool J. 2001 was a return of Dre we loved, complete with all the guns, drugs, pussies, dicks, niggas, hoes and motherfucking bitches that made The Chronic a consummate Hip-Hop classic. Should Detox ever come to official, tangible reality, let’s hope it’s front-loaded with the spirit of classic Dre, though not explicitly (he is, after all, 45) with a progressive outlook that isn’t weighed down by a superficial notion of what makes a seasoned rap artist mature.

Tags: 2001, 2pac, death row, detox, dr. dre, hip-hop, nostalgia, pimps, suge knight, the chronic, wikipedia