Straight Outta Compton is a certified hit, but its also a critical success -- with plenty of praise for the new faces who played the iconic group. It's one thing to impress fans through a portrayal of a beloved icon, but if you're "freaking out" the artist themselves with your likeness, you're definitely doing something right.
"I gotta be honest, it freaked me out when I met him," Dre said of meeting Corey Hawkins (the actor who played him in the film), on his Beats 1 radio show, The Pharmacy. "We had a conversation. We went out to dinner at this restaurant over in Hollywood. We sat across the table and he started talking to me and I heard him like, 'What the... is that?' I'm saying this shit internally. It kinda freaked me out. At the same time, it's one of the things that let me know he was the perfect guy for the job."
Later on, Dre revealed that despite laying down plenty of verses on his three albums, he never really though of himself as an emcee. "I know how to do it. I know how to make my voice project and I know how to stay on beat and what have you, but I've never considered myself a rapper," he revealed. "I'm a producer at heart. I like being in the control room and directing people. That's what I do. But I've gotten on the mic a few times in my career, people seem to like it, so I'll do it again here and there. But that's really not my thing. So I'll do a first verse on the record, then I'll put the really talented rapper on the second verse."
Dre's new album, Compton, has been just as successful as the film, earning both big sales and solid reviews.
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