The DOC has taken a trip down memory lane, recalling the friendly rivalry he and Ice Cube used to have at the height of N.W.A.‘s fame.
Appearing as a guest on VladTV, DOC discussed writing for Eazy E before reminiscing about how he would go bar for bar with Cube in the studio on a constant basis.
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“Oh yeah,” The DOC said when he was asked if he and Ice Cube battled a lot. “But, we never called it that. But, hell yeah. Every day. Because Ice Cube is much better as a writer at some things than I am. I know I can’t compete with him in that space.
“But, I am what’s better at certain things in that space that Cube couldn’t do, so I just hung on my thing and together, we bridged, along with the help of [MC] Ren, we sort of balanced it all out.”
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He went on: “[We] came up with some really cool stuff, man. And we all helped both [Dr.] Dre and Eazy-[E] grow into what they would become as artists. You owe those three guys a lot of credit — you should be giving those three guys a lot of credit for building that movement, even though for us, it was just going to the studio, having fun everyday, drinking 8 balls, talking noise. We were really creating the West Coast sound.”
The DOC ended by saying that he won his fair share of rap battles with his group members and how it was all “friendly competition.”
The DOC is best known for his work penning hits for Dr. Dre and N.W.A. He released his explosive debut album No One Can Do It Better in 1989. But just months later, he was involved in a near-fatal car crash that left his vocal cords damaged for life.
Since the accident, the gruff-voiced Dallas-bred rapper has put out just one other full album, 1996’s Helter Skelter, and made only a few appearances on another, 2003’s The Deuce. In the two decades that have passed since, The DOC has recorded music behind closed doors but has never released any of it.
In an interview with HipHopDX in March, he opened up about recording music and not releasing it and his disdain for the music business.
“I never stopped recording,” he told DX. “I’ve been recording music the whole 20 years. I just recorded for myself. If it’s not something that the machine deems commercially viable then the chances are the people from my past who I would have dealt with wouldn’t have been very accepting of it. So I do it for the love of doing it.”
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When asked at the time whether any of it will ever see the light of day, The DOC said it’s unlikely as he’s become fed up with the music business. “I’m very disillusioned with the machine,” he explained. “I’ve given it everything and it still doesn’t want to give me anything back, and so when I do things it’s just out of love or there’s a purpose behind it.”
