Dr. Dre’s ‘The Chronic’ Can Be Streamed For The First Time On Apple Music

It appears as if Dr. Dre will have yet another thing in common with Taylor Swift. According to Rolling Stone, the legendary rapper, producer, label head and now headphone pioneer will for the first time make his debut album, The Chronic, available to stream online when Apple Music launches at the end of this month. Unlike Swift’s principled stand against digital revenue structures, Dre’s debut has thus far been kept off of Spotify, Tidal and even Beats Music by a labyrinthine legal battle with his former label, Death Row Records. Dre, along with Interscope boss Jimmy Iovine, has had an integral role in Apple Music since the electronics giant purchased the pair’s burgeoning Beats empire last year.

Released at the tail end of 1992, The Chronic is widely considered one of the greatest hip-hop albums ever recorded and one of the most pivotal to the genre’s development. The year prior (with the help of his then-bodyguard Suge Knight), Dre had negotiated a release from his Ruthless Records contract, and left NWA just after the group had dropped its second album, Efil4zaggin. On Knight’s Death Row, the rapper and producer began releasing solo material with guest turns from a precocious Long Beach MC named Snoop Doggy Dogg and with funk samples mined by his friend, Warren G. Though The Chronic is remembered largely for its singles (especially the inescapable “Nuthin’ But a G Thang,” “Let Me Ride” and the Eazy E-taunting “Fuck Wit Dre Day”), it was also starkly political, with audio clips from news broadcasts about the LA riots. Dre’s follow-up, 2001, was released in 1999 and showcased a new crop of artists from his Aftermath imprint, most notably Eminem.

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