[Yo! MTV Raps host Doctor Dre recently sat down with hip-hop personality and SOHH correspondent Shawn Setaro on his popular “The Cipher” podcast. Listen to the full interview and check out five gems he dropped during the Q&A.]
On his first big hip-hop moment:
“The first time I heard Kurtis Blow’s ‘Christmas Rappin’,’ the DJ played that and my eyes were wide open, mesmerized. I was going, wow, there’s a guy rapping on a record. Wow. He’s my hero.”
On creating his first hit song, Original Concept’s “Knowledge Me”:
“‘Knowledge Me’ was a radio station promo. It was a gag song. We were promoting the station. And it became this phenomenon. Who knew?”
On Yo!‘s pilot episode:
“I didn’t believe that was ever going to air. I saw the cameras, but I said, too many black people in one place—it’s never going to air on MTV. Unless it’s a riot, not gonna happen.”
On why he decided to team with Ed Lover:
“I felt so many times as potential actors, hosts, or artists that you get together and you have a chemistry or something like that, you become crabs in a barrel and you think about just yourself. I said, here’s an opportunity for the first time on MTV to see something, based on my radio experiences and my artist experience, let me try and work with this guy. I don’t know him from Adam Smith. So why not? I said, okay, let’s try it. Let’s see what happens.”
On why Yo! was so beloved by artists:
“Yo! MTV Raps felt like a home to everybody, because we were as big fans of the people being on the show as they were of us.”