The Defiant Ones
Yes, this post is just 100% an excuse for me to use this photo of Snoop and me. But, also…
I binged The Defiant Ones last night. So. damn. good. The four four hours flew by.
The engine of the story is entrepreneurship. Both Dre and Jimmy are hustlers who scrapped their way up from the bottom. Watching their parallel journeys eventually intersect was fun and inspiring as hell. Anyone who is a creator will love it.
Other random thoughts:
Language: I watched w/mom and there’s just a ton of profanity. Ironically, there’s a really cute scene where Dre’s mom talks of her initial discomfort with the vulgarity in his lyrics, saying he didn’t normally talk like that. She accepted that he had to, to make it. Given he ended up cussing a f-ton in the interviews for the documentary, I wonder if he’s changed over time, or if he was putting on “the persona” for the filmmaker. My only point is don’t watch this with mom.
What if? There’s a funny story that Jimmy tells of having a long breakfast with Suge Knight to keep him from a Warner exec. He’s successful. Left unexamined is what if had been unsuccessful. Warner Music was getting a ton of shit for the objectionable content in “gangster rap” and they wanted Suge to intervene in Death Row’s content to tone it down. This was before it all really went to crap with Tupac and Biggie getting killed, so maybe it wasn’t good that he succeeded? Or maybe I’m misunderstanding.
Eco-systems: Reid talks a lot about ecosystems and The Defiant Ones is basically a documentary about them. Without a healthy ecosystem in NYC, Jimmy would have never gotten his start with Lennon, Springsteen, etc. The constellation of talent, friends, mentors, et al played a huge role as he stretched to producer and then in starting up Interscope. The same thing was true for Dre all the way to them starting up Beats. The people around you matter so so much.
Springsteen, Bono, Eminem, Snoop, Nas, Reznor, Stefani, Kendrick, Cube — a never-ending who’s who of talent speaking intimately to the camera. Here’s the literal image of my face the second I walked into the studio in 2006 and saw Snoop:
So, yeah. Watch it.
