FeverPitch2
Superstar
It's called sales and word of mouth.Don't these execs have people in the street to inform them where the money is before they invest?
They didn't have some white boy hiding in a dumpster in South Central eavesdropping on people's conversations.
As we've said a million times in this thread, Dre didn't start gangsta rap.
But once Dre refined the NWA concept after the NWA & The Posse album, HIS VERSION of gangsta rap set the streets on fire.
Back then, it was crazy for a rap album to go gold. SOC went platinum.
Dre is a visionary and was more musically sophisticated than his other LA production peers. His only competition is that regard was The Bomb Squad.
SOC was even more hardcore than Eazy Duz It which had a "Radio Side" with tame profanity free songs.
People had cursed on rap records but not that much.
Rappers had dissed women before, but SOC completely replaced "skeezer", "freak", and any other derogatory term for with with "bytch" wholesale.
SOC is not just about profane rhymes.
The musical arrangements are sophisticated and complex.
TIMESTAMPED
The skits outclassed its peers with cinematic realism and fine details.
TIMESTAMPED
The humor was the icing on the cake.
TIMESTAMPED
And that album is just funky dem a mf on top of everything.
SOC is in the damn Library of Congress because our federal government has deemed that album "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Dr. Dre's version of gangsta rap stood out from everyone else's
All the factors were pre-existing (gangsta rap, explicit lyrics, gang culture, west Coast hip-hop)
So the X factor in this is Andre Young.