DJ Quik - Better than Dr. Dre?

West Coast legend deserves his flowers

I was born in the 80s. Raised in the 1990s.

The era of classic hip-hop.

There’s no doubt the genre changed the face of music, after artists like Michael Jackson & Prince smashed through the boundaries of institutionalised racism in the nascent years of MTV.

And as groups like NWA put gangsta rap on the map in the late 80s, bringing the West Coast to the fore not just musically, but politically,the stage was set for a succession of artists to take up the mantle.

But no one even began to match their success, that is, until DJ Quik, real name David Blake, erupted onto the scene in 1991.

Quik, at the age of just 21, was the first artist to go gold & platinum after the Compton collective, with breakout singles Born and Raised in Compton & Tonite from his platinum-selling first album, Quik Is The Name.

Which he recorded in just two weeks.

Quik was so big that Snoop Dogg, probably the biggest star to ever emerge from the culture, has often told the story how record executives in his early career turned him down because he ‘didn’t sound like Quik.’

But internationally, despite over 30 years of exceptional, innovative output, the Compton native has never been as well-known as some of the industry’s heavyweights.

Peers like global megastar & NWA originator, Dr. Dre.

You see, Quik is the producer’s favourite producer, the artists dream architect, the engineer who worked on multi-platinum albums, the DJ with the golden hands, the one whose beats, according to Snoop, even the Dr period has used for inspiration, probably one of the only artists to create his own rhythm sections, a man so sonically gifted, that once you get to know his soundscape, you can hear it in everything he touches.

“Prince loved me, Mike (Jackson) loved me, Janet loves me. Dre fucks with me,” Quik told the R&B money podcast not long ago.

It’s not hard to see (or hear) why - at a young age Quik taught himself how to play instruments, & would one day go on to work with a 74-piece orchestra, alongside producing fire for the likes of Janet Jackson, Jay-Z, Ice Cube, Jon B, Whitney Houston & Deborah Cox.

As a rapper he has a distinct, high-pitched voice, laced with humour, wit & wordplay.

I confess - I was a little late to Quik. I had heard Tonite, but it was really Safe & Sound, launched in 1995 at the peak of Death Row Records stunning takeover of the industry, that first grabbed my attention.

Not least because of his beef with fellow Compton rhymer, MC Eiht, who he took major shots at on the diss track, Dollaz & Sense.

The song first appeared on the Murder Was The Case soundtrack, & Quik performed it as part of the Death Row roster (even though he was technically signed to Profile Records) at the infamous 1995 Source Awards, when Snoop, Dre & Suge Knight called out the East Coast & Bad Boy, marking an iconic conflagration point in a coastal rivalry that defined the era.

What I remember most is people quoting the lyrics; diss records had always been a part of the culture, but at this time they were at the forefront of it.

Aggressively.

A trend only excorcised in the aftermath of the tragic deaths of Tupac Shakur & Christopher Wallace, aka The Notorious B.I.G.

E I H T, now should I continue?

Yeah you left out the ‘G’ cos the ‘G’ ain’t in you.

But on Safe & Sound it wasn’t the raw, funk-fuelled disses of Dollaz & Sense, Let You Hav It or Street Level Entrance that really struck a chord, it was the sonic diversity & immaculately helmed production of songs like Safe & Sound, Summer Breeze & Something 4 Tha Mood that marked him as an irrepresible talent.

And an instrumental? It was my first introduction to Quik’s Groove.

Quik may have used samples & interpolatons for many of his songs (Tonite used parts of Kleeer, Betty Wright & Esther Williams’ Last Night Changed It All, while he flipped the Brothers Johnson’s Strawberry Letter 23 for Something 4 Tha Mood, & Cameo’s Rigor Mortis for Get At Me) but these felt unmistakeably his own creations & moreover, a nod to the music he grew up on - a stirring mix of 70s & 80s soul, P-Funk legacies from the likes of George Clinton, its G-Funk reprise spearheaded by Dre, Snoop & Death Row, & his own brand of breezy, West Coast, horn-drenched funk.

The years between 1995’s Safe & Sound & 1998’s Rhythm-Al-Ism amounted to a long wait.

His long-standing link to Death Row CEO & notorious supremo Marion ‘Suge’ Knight (he was signed to Suge’s label Funky Enuff Records in the 1980s) meant he was always in demand workwise - as well as producing the 2Pac song Heartz Of Men, he also reportedly mixed & engineered at least half of All Eyez On Me, an album eventually certified Diamond - which regulalry features on modern day G.O.A.T lists - in two days & helped out with additional producing using his real name David Blake, because of issues with his label.

It’s also suggested he did uncredited work on one of the last great Death Row albums, Dogg Food, as well as Snoop’s misunderstood second album, Tha Doggfather.

But Pac & Biggie’s deaths changed the course of history. And Quik revealed he had his own lucky escape the night the Death Row star was murdered.

2Pac had been riding with driver Suge after watching the Mike Tyson v Bruce Seldon heavyweight bout when gunman, retaliating after a gang member had been beaten in the lobby of the MGM Grand, opened fire.

“My mom was so gangster,” Quik told the LA Times. “She made Suge and them leave when they tried to get me to come with them to the Tyson fight that night.”

That, coupled with the death of a man in a club during an escalating fued between the Quik affiliated Tree Top Pirus & the MC Eiht affiliated Tragniew Compton Crips, led the rapper, much like Snoop, to turn away from the ‘gangsta’ element of the West Coast scene.

In 1996 he recorded an iconic slice of R&B with Tony! Toni! Tone!. Let’s Get Down was classic Quik - a lush funk groove overlaid with an acoustic guitar which helped propel their album House of Music to over one million sales.

Not long ago, an unreleased Death Row Remix of it he did appeared on YouTube.

He also worked on multiple songs with Shaquille O’Neal, including the talkbox-laced Strait Playin’ (Superman).

Which brings us to Rhythm-Al-Ism.

I still remember feverishly pulling the wrapper of the CD I’d bought at the Virgin Megastore on Champs Elysees. After weeks of reading reviews on the internet, a host of which (The Source, Rap Reviews) had scored it highly, & one in particular (I forget the site) which had used the line… if you appreciate genuinely good music, you’ll like this album, but…

I finally got a listen.

Rhythm-Al-Ism was a delicious hip-hop/R&B/jazz fusion from an evidently more mature, & relaxed, DJ Quik, content to concentrate on good vibes, style & his acerbic wit.

The moment the intro faded, & We Still Party erupted into life, I knew whatever he did in the future, real fans were unlikely to ever be let down.

You’z A Ganxsta addressed his pivot away from the guns & glamour, after what had been a tumultous time for the genre.

He produced three superb tracks on Snoop’s No Limit Top Dogg album, notable also for the Dr. Dre produced smash, B*tch Please.

On the podcast All The Smoke, Quik revealed he took a call from Snoop around this time, who told him that Dre had used the beat he’d done for Peter Gunz & Shaq, The Way It’s Going Down, as the genesis for the song.

In 2000, the paths of Quik & Dre diverged wildly - 2001 hit the shelves & brought Dre & Snoop back into platinum-crusted superstardom, while Quik’s last album on Profile before being dropped, Balance & Option, only sold around 400,000 copies.

The music was still excellent, songs such as the Mausberg featuring Change Da Game, We Came 2 Play & Pitch In On A Party ensured Quik got rotation & hardcore fans were happy, as well as the classic Do I Love Her? with Pomona native Sugafree (whose solo career Quik launched with an orgy of stupendous beats on Street Gospel in 1996) whilst Well, a track featuring Raphael Saadiq & a live orchestra, showed off his sonic diversity, but it’s reach at this time was largely parochial.

Notably, the album featured a scathing diss track called U Ain’t Fresh….

The number 23 on the beats, 'bout to do ya
Mister Blake A.K.A. DJ Quik talkin' to ya
And I'll prove I'm clever and yo game is wack with one line
I'll never put my name on a track that wasn't mine
This hip-hop shit, is getting stupid again
These niggas gun-totin', fightin', gettin' ruthless again
There's a message in that Big Book, didn't you read it?
It say if niggas don't remember the past, they gon' repeat it
…

A later verse from Kam left no doubt he was taking aim at Dr. Dre.

Their contrasting fortunes wasn’t the only thing at the heart of it, the reference to ‘Ruthless’ was a direct response to miscontrued lyrics on the song What’s The Difference, from Dre’s iconic 2001 album.

“Spit venom in interviews, speakin on reunions, Move units, then talk shit and we can do this. Until then - I ain't even speakin your name. Just keep my name outta yo' mouth and we can keep it the same,” rapped Dre, & Quik, who’d been asking to play the role of Eazy-E if there was ever an NWA reunion, took it personally.

“At this point…I was mad at Dr. Dre,” Quik told the LA Leakers. “I thought he dissed me when he was like, talking about an N.W.A. reunion. I thought he just shitted on me, so I let it marinate for a long time. I can’t just take no diss, because at that point I was trying to work with Dre and I was sending messages to him and it was like he was ignoring them or [his] people just weren’t giving him the messages, so I did this record like fuck Dr. Dre. I was really mad.

“Ultimately, Xzibit told me I was wrong, like ‘No man, he wasn’t talking about you,” he said. “That wasn’t even about you.’ It’s not like he was shitting on me, it’s just that with the whole N.W.A [reunion], because I wanted to do Eazy-E’s part if they had ever done an N.W.A. reunion…so X cleaned it all up and let me know I had jumped the gun and was tripping.

Then Dre called me and we ended up working together. So I had to pout and scream like a spoiled brat and damn near diss the man to get in the studio with him. Funny how life works.”

The track they did together was “Put It On Me” from 2002’s Under Tha Influence.

But the collaboration didn’t stop there - Quik had been doing some work with Dre’s Aftermath signee Truth Hurts, & one morning heard a Hindi instrumental on TV which he sampled (illegally it turned out - the label was hit with a 500 million lawsuit, which Dre & Jimmy Iovine eventually resolved).

Addictive, mixed by Dr. Dre, was a top five hit in several European countries, as well as peaking at number 9 on the Billboard Hot100.

Quik stayed busy in the noughties & beyond, as well as producing some gems for Kurupt, & eventually working on a full length LP with the Dogg Pound member called BlaqKout, he produced for Jay-Z, Eightball & MJG & did plenty behind the scenes - that’s him on the hand claps for 50 Cent’s In da Club.

Something he later claimed he received no credit for after burning a Death Row royalty check live on Instagram.

Adding to the sense that he’s never truly received his due, & that the Jeykll & Hyde dichotomy which often surfaces in interviews with Quik, is never far from the surface.

All the Tupac sh*t I did, Tha Dogg Pound project — devil, you are a b*tch. I want my real money, and I want all my credits for everything that I did in this industry. All the songs, including Hot In Herre by Nelly and Pharrell—I want my credit for (sampling) ‘Get Nekkid.’ I want my credit from Kendrick Lamar for — and this is no disrespect to Kendrick (or) TDE; you guys are awesome — but the fact that y’all left my credit off of King Kunta was crazy. R. Kelly – Home Alone that’s 100% all of my drum sounds, my music, and me playing percussion on it; I want that too. All Eyez On Me, that’s my credit—I want that. In da Club, I helped with that record. If I Can’t by 50 Cent, I want that record. I want all my credits.

He did get credited for a remix of Janet Jackson’s All For You, which bears all the bass heavy, percussive hallmarks of his best work.

And even though it remains perhaps Quik’s darkest LP (he was in the middle of some family issues at the time), some of the beats on 2005’s Trauma are as funky & vicious as anything the West Coast has ever seen, replete with the horn, drum & turntablism that always marked him as unique.

2014’s Midnight Life was his last LP release after The Book Of David in 2011. But since then, Quik, like Dre, has mostly swapped mic duties for orchestrating at the boards.

Rosecrans, his 2017 LP with Problem, notable for a long overdue collobration between Quik & MC Eiht, was an oneiric mix of futuristic hip hop & lo-fi R&B.

While 2024’s Chupacabra with Jason Martin, saw him push the envelop even further, working with the likes of CeeLo Green, Free Nationals & KAYTRANADA.

You can’t argue with the cultural impact of NWA, The Chronic, Doggystyle or 2001. For that reason alone, if you ask most people to name the greatest West Coast producer/MC to ever do it, they will likely always name Dr. Dre, but real hip hop heads will always have a soft spot for Quik.

Over the years, it’s hard to argue against the fact he’s produced startlingly consistent, innovative, & unique music, & with far less co-producers or ghostwriters on deck.

The sheer breadth & depth of his catalogue, for this author at least, outweighs Dre’s, in no small part down to the latter’s perfectionism-induced paucity of release.

There has always been the shadow of claims of around Dre, it happened way back when with Daz Dillinger, who let it be known that many of the beats from Dogg Food, were his.

It happened with Scott Storch, with Mel Man.

In December 2022, Quik Tweeted:

I know it’s early. But I deserve to be where Dre is. I don’t think it’s fair, but I understand why. I’ve never had a machine behind me, that always hurt my friends more than it did me.

But Daz, who learnt his trade on the Chronic & Doggystyle, & contributed behind the boards on most of Death Row’s classic albums, particularly 2pac’s All Eyez On Me, eventually came to appreciate just what it was that made the doctor so special.

He told BHighTV when asked about Quik’s comments.

DJ Quik is dope man I give it up to DJ Quik every day all day I even had him mix my stuff, you know what I mean, I’m not ashamed to say it.That’s my homeboy and he right up there, technical…but you know, it’s Dr. Dre, you know what I’m sayin?

You can make your beats and your music how you make ‘em, but when Dr. Dre takes that shit it’s a whole ‘nother level!

There’s no shame being in the shadow of a titan like Andre Young - most of hip-hop is.

And to give him credit, Quik regularly cites Dre as the being the reason that so many artists, himself included, got record deals.

Because he showed us a different way to make our music. Even just going into the studio after Dre had vacated it was an education, seeing how he set up his shit. He’s like Quincy Jones, you’ve got to give him something he’s never heard.

Dre will always loom large in the pantheon, his talent for producing, mixing & bringing songs together; be that by fleshing out other artists’ work or creating his own, is there for all to see - you simply can’t argue with the figures or his cultural impact.

But whatever your inclination, one thing is indisuptable, Quik may not have the numbers, but he’s got the music.

Over 30 years vitalising everything from lowriders to street corners, boardrooms to bedrooms & clubs around the world with his unique brand of California funk.

A generational talent.

One whose work will live forever.

Plenty of artists call themselves legends, few truly deserve the moniker.