Yes, this post is just 100% an excuse for me to use this photo of Snoop and me. But, also…
I binged The Defiant Ones last night. So. damn. good. The four four hours flew by.
The engine of the story is entrepreneurship. Both Dre and Jimmy are hustlers who scrapped their way up from the bottom. Watching their parallel journeys eventually intersect was fun and inspiring as hell. Anyone who is a creator will love it.
Other random thoughts:
Language: I watched w/mom and there’s just a ton of profanity. Ironically, there’s a cute scene where Dre’s mom talks of her initial discomfort with his lyrical vulgarity considering she didn’t think he normally speaks that way. She accepted that he had to “conform” in order to “make it.” Given he ended up cussing a f-ton in the interviews for the documentary, I wonder if he’s changed over time, or if he was putting on “that persona” for the filmmaker. My only point is don’t watch this with your mom.
What if? There’s a funny story that Jimmy tells of having a long breakfast with Suge Knight to keep him from a Warner exec who was going to use their leverage to push Suge to tone down the violence, etc. Jimmy is successful. Left unexamined was what might have happened. The counterfactual in Warner Music successfully getting Suge to tone down Death Row’s content might have ended in a de-escalation of the rap-wars and MAYBE MAYBE MAYBE Tupac and Biggie not getting killed. So maybe it was bad that he succeeded? Who knows.
Eco-systems: Reid talks a lot about ecosystems and The Defiant Ones is basically a documentary about them. Without a healthy ecosystem in NYC, Jimmy would have never gotten his start with Lennon, Springsteen, etc. The constellation of talent, friends, mentors, et al played a huge role as he stretched to producer and then started up Interscope. The same thing was true for Dre. The people around you matter so so much.
Springsteen, Bono, Eminem, Snoop, Nas, Reznor, Stefani, Kendrick, Cube — a never-ending who’s who of talent speaking intimately to the camera. Here’s the literal image of my face the second I walked into the studio in 2006 and saw Snoop:
So, yeah. Watch it.