California Senate Honoring Hip Hop and Dr. Dre Despite History of Violence Against Women
‘It should no longer be acceptable to honor men who mistreat and then sideline women from sharing in hip-hop’s success story’
By Katy Grimes, August 13, 2023 2:30 am
The California Senate will be honoring the 50th anniversary of hip hop Monday, and particularly West coast hip hop. The Legislature regularly honors cultural events as well as myriad leaders each year. But this one has a blemish.
Sen. Steven Bradford (D-Los Angeles) authored Senate Concurrent Resolution 81 honoring hip hop for 50 years of groundbreaking music and style, and names famous hip hop stars Run-DMC, Queen Latifah, and LL Cool J, Salt-N-Pepa, and hip hop artists from California such as Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Tupac Shakur, Snoop Dogg.
Tupac Shakur was murdered in a driveway shooting in 1996.
The resolution specifies, “N.W.A’s record Straight Outta Compton became the first blockbuster gangsta rap album, established west coast hip hop as a vital genre, and made California rival to hip hop’s long-time capital of New York.”
The SCR identifies “Hip hop artists from California such as Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Tupac Shakur, Snoop Dogg, and others revolutionized the genre and influenced generations of artists who followed.”
Hip hop isn’t easy-listening-in-an-elevator music. Nor have the stars always been such upstanding citizens worthy of say, Legislative honor.
In a February 2023 op ed for the Grio,, wrote, “Dr. Dre has long been accused of violence against women. Why is he still being rewarded?”
Yearwood clarifies:
“As we gear up to celebrate hip-hop’s past achievements and innovations, we must also keep it real with ourselves about our high tolerance for violence against women and the way we continue to collectively silence the women who tell their truth about surviving that violence. I’d like to call it a dark history, but last year ended with Megan Thee Stallion, another powerful woman in this community, having to fight for her truth.”
“It should no longer be acceptable to honor men who mistreat and then sideline women from sharing in hip-hop’s success story — and who refuse to be held accountable for their actions. Dr. Dre is a musical genius who forced hip-hop to stretch its geographical boundaries across the country. In doing so, he opened up the entire country and globe to contribute its unique sounds, to be more than provincial. He made music that was honest about the violence from his era. But creating an award in his name, with accusations of long-standing patterns of violence, keeps us locked in a perpetual adolescence, where we refuse to heal or grow. It sidelines the women who’ve been a part of this culture in every way from the very beginning, and it attempts to erase decades of harm.”
An article titled “Beatings by Dr. Dre” by Byron Crawford at Medium.com went into great detail about what Dr. Dre did to several women in hip hop, including Dee Barnes, a female rapper, and host of Fox’s hip hop show Pump It Up! On her show, Barnes and Ice Cube, who pursued a solo career after departing N.W.A., Dr. Dre and fellow bandmates over a compensation dispute, spoke about the tension between them, which apparently set Dre off:
Dr. Dre confronted Dee Barnes at a record release party in LA, where he proceeded to beat the living shit out of her. Here’s how Rolling Stone reporter Alan Light described it in an article called “Beating Up the Charts.”
He picked her up by her hair and “began slamming her head and the right side of her body repeatedly against a brick wall near the stairway” as his bodyguard held off the crowd with a gun. After Dre tried to throw her down the stairs and failed, he began kicking her in the ribs and hands. She escaped and ran into the women’s rest room. Dre followed her and “grabbed her from behind by the hair again and proceeded to punch her in the back of the head.”
Members of N.W.A. discussed the attack in subsequent interviews. And I quote.
MC Ren: “She deserved it—bitch deserved it.”
Eazy-E: “Yeah, bitch had it coming.”
Dr. Dre himself: “People talk all this shit, but you know, somebody fucks with me, I’m gonna fuck with them. I just did it, you know. Ain’t nothing you can do now by talking about it. Besides, it ain’t no big thing—I just threw her through a door.”
Crawford even found a YouTube video of Dr. Dre and N.W.A. members saying this:
Rev. Yearwood reminds us that “Dr. Dre was being featured in the Super Bowl halftime show last year came right around the time R. Kelly was being convicted of three counts of producing child pornography and three counts of enticing a minor into criminal sexual activity.”
Yearwood continues:
“Similarly, singer Michel’le, an ex-fiancee of Dr. Dre and the mother of one of his children, has recountedhow he gave her a series of black eyes and cracked her rib, after which she mostly stepped away from a promising music career. Even more recently, Nicole Young, Dr. Dre’s ex-wife, accused him of repeated domestic violence during their 24-year marriage. Yet, the award at the Grammys was both renamed the Dr. Dre Global Impact Award in his honor and presented to him, despite this long history of alleged violence against women.
While these violent attacks took place in the 1990’s, it is worth asking why this is who Sen. Bradford and the California Senate plan to honor. There are plenty of hip hop artists to celebrate.
“As hip-hop celebrates its 50th anniversary, it’s time to do the hard work of true healing and justice for Black women,” Rev. Yearwood said.
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He’s openly apologised numerous times, and has addressed this numerous times. Move to on, everyone makes mistakes and nearly every everyone has done something they regret when they were younger… He has done a lot of good, give him some praise ffs..
Democrats had no problem a couple years ago with the U.S. bailing on Afghanistan and leaving 10s of millions of women to violence.
Sen Steven Bradford and his ilk know that repugnant serial abuser Dr. Dre and HIS ilk are not worthy of being “honored,” even by the increasingly degraded Grammy Awards and other music award shows, never mind by the California Senate. This is just a way for CA Dem/Marxists to flip the bird at California citizens and rub their nose in who holds power, much like Gov Gruesome famously saying “the door is wide open now —- it’s gonna happen —- whether you like it or not,” or openly cheating in elections to demoralize voters. Or honoring appalling, clownish drag queens on the floor of the legislature. It’s the CA Marxist/Dems essentially saying to CA citizens what is inscribed above the Gates of Hell in Dante’s “Inferno”: “Abandon all hope ye who enter here.”
What you said (showandtell)
I believe they are all Freemasons. They’re all above you
Democrats who control California are a criminal gang of lying hypocritical thieves? They’re always pandering to one group or another to win votes and donations?
Yes, TJ, it’s probably just as simple as that, isn’t it.
at the mall.just yesterday i saw a big stand up cutout of snoop hog and DEATH ROW records, just as last weeks beer commercial on the beach with his jewish fiend. life and death is in the power of the tongue and for 30 years they rapped death death and more death and dahh it doesnt take a brain scientist to figure it out harvard.psycho psychologists they reap what they SOW sow sow for dickades yep DEATH upon themselves sin massive numbers. 15000 black gun deaths per tear times 30 years is half a mil and multiple total vietnam war memorials combined (8 slimes in fact) and you want to pin it on whitey, or the chops, and you want riparations to boot. keep dreaming and rap it up on with your jewish tv accomplices as compasses corona boy- maybe that will bring some of the slain back to life. and what a fine tribute it be to MLK who struggled floor real
So the State senate is going to celebrate rap music and thug boys? What do you expect from Democraps who celebrate drag queens, force porn and CRT in our schools, and despise Law Enforcement? Are Bradford and the Senate Democraps going to show up with their pants half down, wearing earrings, and wearing ball caps sideways?
This just goes to show that these Dems doe not take their jobs seriously. This state has a lot of problems, many created by the Democraps that need to be addressed. We don’t need thug boys and thug music, but we do need term limits. Enough of this $hi+ !