The D.O.C. says Dr. Dre gave him the “hard truth” about continuing his rap career after a devastating car crash in the ’80s.
In November 1989, the Dallas native was thrown through his rear window in a near-fatal accident on California’s Ventura Freeway. After smashing his face into a tree, D.O.C. endured 21 hours of surgery, during which a breathing tube scarred his larynx, causing permanent damage that changed his voice.
Even though D.O.C. wanted to keep his momentum in the music world following the success of his debut album No One Can Do It Better, it was Dr. Dre who was brutally honest about his altered voice.
The D.O.C. shared this conversation in a new interview on the Life After With David Vobora podcast, as seen around the 17-minute mark in the video below.
“Dre’s my brother on another level. He’s the only guy that’s ever told me, ‘Don’t rap. You don’t sound good. They think you’re the king, you should go out like that,'” D.O.C. remembered. “Imagine the love that it takes to tell somebody something like that. That’s real and he’s always been that backbone for me.”
The D.O.C.’s accident was a key moment in Dre’s storyline in the 2015 music biopic Straight Outta Compton, where D.O.C. was portrayed by Marlon Yates Jr. After the accident, D.O.C. began writing for Dre, his former group N.W.A., and Snoop Dogg, who was an early protégé of the rapper-producer in the 1990s.
“Snoop was so inviting and receptive of what I wanted to give him. I didn’t teach him anything, but I allowed him, through me, to find what he was looking for, because it was always there,” D.O.C. explained.
“That was liberating because I got a chance to be what I was supposed to be in my mind through [Snoop] because we share similar traits, very expressive, very funny, extremely charming, very personable, can act, sing, rap, dance, just a talented person.”
In 2023, D.O.C. appeared on CBS Mornings, where he was shown in studio sessions using A.I. technology through Suno AI to recreate his original voice. After No One Can Do It Better, he released two more albums, with his final one being Deuce in 2003.
