LETTERS : Difference Between Dre, Rest of Us

I want to thank Chuck Philips for his Dec. 15 article, “The Violent Art, Violent Reality of Dr. Dre.” It’s refreshing to find an article about an artist (rappers are artists, aren’t they?) who young people can look up to for his exemplary personal and business life.

How inspiring: a “young Los Angeles street tough” turns into the “producing genius behind the pioneer gangsta rap group N.W.A.” Who cares if his lyrics have been “attacked for glorifying violence, drug abuse and sexual degradation of women”? Why, he’s a “brilliant innovator”!

Who cares if he goes to court for allegedly breaking a producer’s jaw, that he will be in court in January for sentencing on battery of a police officer and two others in a hotel brawl, that in February he will face a lawsuit by a woman he allegedly assaulted, that next summer he likely will be a defendant in a racketeering lawsuit for allegedly hiring thugs to intimidate a business partner.

This is meaningless, because he has “serious credentials and artistic integrity.” Dr. Dre has the proper attitude about his problems: “1992 was not my year,” Dre quips in the article, and Dre describes himself as “. . . a very easygoing guy. A simple person really. I’m not necessarily a violent person, but I don’t take no (expletive). . . . Like anybody else, if someone (expletive) with me, I’m going to get pissed off.”

He’s right. We all get pissed off when somebody (expletives) with us, but we don’t all punch cops, break jaws, slam women and hire thugs to remedy our problems. This difference seems lost on Dr. Dre and the star-struck Philips.

PAUL CHRISTMAN

Los Angeles