Helter Skelter was widely ignored and even somewhat discredited by The D.O.C himself. The name of the album is a reference to Charles Manson 's idea of The Beatles ' ' Helter Skelter ' prophesying the end of the world. Jan 29, 2008 Helter Skelter is the second studio album by The D.O.C.; released on January 23, 1996. This album was an attempt at making a comeback following the car crash which severely damaged his vocal cords. The album was widely ignored, and has even been discredited by D.O.C himself.
Curry in January 2016
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Background information | |
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Birth name | Tracy Lynn Curry |
Also known as | |
Born | June 10, 1968 (age 51) Dallas, Texas, U.S. |
Origin | Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
Genres | |
Occupation(s) | |
Years active | 1987âpresent |
Labels |
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Associated acts |
Tracy Lynn Curry (born June 10, 1968), better known by his stage name The D.O.C., is an American rapper, songwriter, and record producer. In addition to a solo career, he was a member of the hip hop group Fila Fresh Crew and later collaborated with gangsta rap group N.W.Aâwhere he co-wrote many of their releasesâas well as Eazy-E's solo debut album Eazy-Duz-It. He has also worked with Dr. Dre, co-writing his solo debut album, while Dre produced Curry's solo debut album, released by Ruthless Records. He was one of the founders of Death Row Records along with Dr. Dre and Suge Knight.
After Fila Fresh Crew split up in 1988, The D.O.C. went on to pursue a successful solo career. In 1989, he released his debut album, No One Can Do It Better, which reached number-one on the US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart for two weeks and spawned two number one hits on the Hot Rap Songs chart: 'It's Funky Enough' and 'The D.O.C. & The Doctor'. The album went platinum five years after its release. In late 1989, months after the release of No One Can Do It Better, The D.O.C. suffered a serious car crash that resulted in the crushing of his larynx, permanently changing his voice. Since his recovery, he has released two more albums, Helter Skelter in 1996 and Deuce in 2003.
- 1Life and career
- 3Discography
Life and career[edit]
Early life and Fila Fresh Crew[edit]
The D.O.C. was a natural, by far the most gifted rapper I have ever heard. You can talk all you want about Slick Rick or Rakim. The D.O.C.'s machine-gun mouth takes the title. No one could do it better.
Jerry Heller on The D.O.C.[1]
Tracy Lynn Curry was born on June 10, 1968 in Dallas, Texas. As a teenager, Curry began his career as a member of Fila Fresh Crew, a hip hop trio that originated in Dallas, Texas. While in the group, Curry was known as Doc-T. In 1987, the group had four songs featured on the compilation album N.W.A and the Posse which featured various other artists; the same four tracks would later appear on the group's album Tuffest Man Alive, which was released in 1988. Though the album would produce three singles, the group disbanded not long after its release. By this point, Curry had moved to Los Angeles and become acquainted with members of N.W.A and Ruthless Records.
Ruthless and No One Can Do It Better[edit]
Curry would begin using the name The D.O.C. after he was signed to Eazy-E's Ruthless Records. The D.O.C. contributed lyrics to N.W.A's debut studio album, Straight Outta Compton, and performed the opening verse on 'Parental Discretion Iz Advised'. Curry also wrote for Eazy-E's debut studio album, Eazy-Duz-It and co-wrote 'Keep Watchin' from Michel'le's self-titled debut album.
In 1989, The D.O.C. released his solo debut, the Dr. Dre-produced No One Can Do It Better. The album was very well received by critics, and sold well, peaking at no. 20 on the Billboard 200 for two consecutive weeks; by 1994, the album reached Platinum status.[2]Allmusic gives the album a five-star rating and describes it as 'an early landmark of West Coast Rap' as well as 'an undeniable masterpiece'. No One Can Do It Better produced five singles and four music videos.
Automobile accident and move to Death Row[edit]
In November 1989, five months after the release of No One Can Do It Better, Curry was involved in a near-fatal car crash. Driving home from a party, he fell asleep at the wheel and his car veered off the freeway. Curry, who was not wearing a seat belt, was thrown out the rear window, slamming face-first into a tree. His injuries required 21 hours of plastic surgery, and he spent 2½ weeks in the hospital. He could not speak for about a month, and he was left with a different, raspier voice.[3] The D.O.C. continued to write for N.W.A and contributed lyrics and minor vocals to their 1990 EP 100 Miles and Runnin', where he co-wrote all the songs except for 'Just Don't Bite It' and 'Kamurshol', and their final album Niggaz4Life.
The D.O.C. was the guy that came up with those great stories. He was probably the single most influential person in gangsta rap.
Dick Griffey CEO of SOLAR Records on The D.O.C.[4]
In 1991, The D.O.C left Ruthless Records along with Dr. Dre and Michel'le to sign with newly founded Death Row Records. Dr. Dre also used his talents as one of the writers for his debut solo album The Chronic, contributing to the tracks 'Lil' Ghetto Boy', 'A Nigga Witta Gun', and 'Bitches Ain't Shit'. He also appeared on the skit track 'The $20 Sack Pyramid'. He is referenced by name in 'Nuthin' but a G Thang', and appears in the song's video as well. The liner notes to The Chronic say, 'I want to give a special shout out to The D.O.C. for talking me into doin' this album.' His name is mentioned by Snoop Dogg in the intro of the album. ('Peace to da D.O.C., still makin' it funky enough').
In addition to The Chronic, The D.O.C. worked on Snoop Dogg's debut album Doggystyle, and added some vocals on the song 'Serial Killa'. The D.O.C. continued to be a ghostwriter for various songs on Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg albums. 'Real Muthaphuckkin G's', from Eazy-E's 1993 extended play It's On (Dr. Dre) 187um Killa, includes lyrics sampled from 'It's Funky Enough' in the song's hook.
Feud with Dr. Dre and Helter Skelter[edit]
In 1996, The D.O.C attempted a comeback following the car crash which severely damaged his vocal cords. The album, titled 'Helter Skelter', produced two singles which both featured music videos. Helter Skelter was widely ignored and even somewhat discredited by The D.O.C himself.[5] The name of the album is a reference to Charles Manson's idea of The Beatles' 'Helter Skelter' prophesying the end of the world.
The title and concept behind this album were originally developed by Dr. Dre as a collaborative effort between him and Ice Cube, titled Heltah Skeltah. At that time, however, The D.O.C. had become disillusioned with Death Row Records and Dre, having received no payment for his work ghostwriting at Death Row[citation needed]. So in late 1994, D.O.C. decided to leave Death Row and headed to Atlanta. Taking lyrics he had already written for Heltah Skeltah, he recorded Helter Skelter, keeping the name to spite Dre.[5] His lyrics were inspired by the writings of Milton William Cooper. Especially noticeable in songs Secret Plan and Welcome to the New World.
Silverback Records and Deuce[edit]
In 1997, The D.O.C. founded his own Dallas-based record label, Silverback Records.[6] Curry introduced Dallas rapper 6Two to Dre, who featured him on his 1999 comeback album 2001; Curry and also provided lyrics for the album[7] On July 20, 2000, The D.O.C. appeared on stage with Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg at The Centrum in Worcester, Massachusetts during the Up in Smoke Tour.[8]
In 2003, The D.O.C released his third album entitled 'Deuce' on Silverback Records. The album was originally meant to be a Six-Two album, completely produced by Dr. Dre and released through Aftermath Entertainment. However, D.O.C. and Dre argued over whether D.O.C. should be rapping on the album.[9] The D.O.C.'s presence on this album is minimal however, making an appearance to introduce tracks or perform in skits such as 'My Prayer' and 'Souliloquy'. The only single released from Deuce was 'The Shit', which features former-N.W.A members MC Ren and Ice Cube, along with Snoop Dogg and Six-Two. Deuce focuses primarily on showcasing other artists on D.O.C.'s Silverback Records label, including U.P.-T.I.G.H.T., El Dorado, and in particular, Six-Two.
Later career[edit]
The D.O.C. wrote lyrics for Snoop Dogg's album Tha Blue Carpet Treatment.[10] In December 2006, The D.O.C. revealed that he was working on his fourth album, entitled Voices, and stated that it would be released after Dr. Dre's upcoming fourth album Detox, which has since been scrapped in favor of Compton.[11] In a May 2008 interview, The D.O.C. stated that he and Dre were working on the album, explaining 'There is an album, and you got the title, but that's also because that's the title Dre likes. Dre and I decided to do another D.O.C. album after this Detox record. We decided to do one more together and end our story the right way.'[12][13]
According to a 2009 interview, Snoop Dogg assisted The D.O.C. in seeking a voice therapist. It was found that The D.O.C.'s vocal cords are not irreparably severed or crushed, and that his voice could still be surgically restored by up to 70%.
After the release of the biopic Straight Outta Compton, the D.O.C. revealed that his natural voice had returned if he had concentrated, and that he recorded new music, although he was not ready to release anything yet. Although he is not mentioned in the songwriting credits, the D.O.C. claimed that he helped write Dr. Dre's third album Compton.[14]
Media appearances[edit]
- The song 'It's Funky Enough' has appeared on popular video games Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, True Crime: Streets of LA and Madden 2005. Also, 'Whirlwind Pyramid' appeared on Tony Hawk's Underground 2 and 'The Formula' appeared on True Crime: Streets of LA. And his song 'Mind Blowin' was part of the NBA Live 2005 soundtrack.
- He made a guest appearance in Shyne's music-video for the song 'That's Gangsta', which samples the same beat D.O.C. uses for his first hit 'It's Funky Enough', Foster Sylvers's 'Misdemeanor'. The song 'Lend Me An Ear' was featured on Lakai skate shoe's video 'Fully Flared'.
- He made an appearance in the documentary 'We From Dallas' (2014), a film dedicated to telling the history of hip hop from the Dallas perspective.
- The D.O.C. is portrayed by actor Marlon Yates, Jr. in the 2015 N.W.A biopic Straight Outta Compton.
- He made an appearance in the series 'The Defiant Ones' (2017), a 4 episode series which takes a look at the relationship between Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre, alongside a number those involved in their partnership.
Discography[edit]
Studio albums[edit]
- No One Can Do It Better (1989)
- Helter Skelter (1996)
- Deuce (2003)
Collaboration albums[edit]
- N.W.A. and the Possewith N.W.A (1987)
- Tuffest Man Alivewith Fila Fresh Crew (1988)
References[edit]
- ^Heller, Jerry (2007). Ruthless: A Memoir. Gallery. p. 120. ISBN978-1-4169-1794-6.
- ^Steve Huey. 'The D.O.C.: No One Can Do It Better'. Retrieved 19 August 2015.
- ^'The D.O.C. Finds His Own Voice : Pop Beat: A 1989 auto accident could have ended his career but today the rapper's back with a new sound'. latimes. Retrieved 19 August 2015.
- ^Welcome To Death Row Documentary 'Welcome To Death Row' (Interview).
- ^ abCurry, Tracy (2002-03-19). 'From Ruthless To Death Row' (Interview). Interviewed by ThaFormula.Com. Archived from the original on 2012-02-05. Retrieved 2015-09-14.
- ^'Silverback Records'. Web.archive.org. December 7, 2002.
- ^'Bio'. Web.archive.org. February 6, 2002.
- ^[1][dead link]
- ^'// The D.O.C. Interview (Part 1) (April 2008) // West Coast News Network //'. Dubcnn.com. Retrieved 2015-09-29.
- ^'dubcnn.com // The D.O.C. Interview (December 2006) // West Coast News Network //'. Dubcnn.com. Retrieved January 22, 2020.
- ^'dubcnn.com // The D.O.C. Interview (December 2006) // West Coast News Network //'. dubcnn.com. Retrieved 19 August 2015.
- ^'dubcnn.com // The D.O.C. Interview (Part 1) (April 2008) // West Coast News Network //'. dubcnn.com. Retrieved 19 August 2015.
- ^'dubcnn.com // The D.O.C. Interview (Part 2) (May 2008) // West Coast News Network //'. dubcnn.com. Retrieved 19 August 2015.
- ^'The DOC speaks of getting his voice back'. Vice. Retrieved 26 May 2016.
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_D.O.C.&oldid=937069999'
Had an easy explanation for why he ordered the deaths of the family of Leno LaBianca and residents at Sharon Tateâs house at the hands of his âFamilyâ: âItâs, the music theyâre putting out,â he told the district attorney who sent him to death row. âThese kids listen to this music and pick up the message. Itâs subliminal.âA half-century has passed since the Manson Family carried out the brutal, stunning Tate-LaBianca murders in August of 1969, and their supposed link to the Beatles remains confounding. The words âHealter sic Skelterâ had been painted in victimsâ blood on the LaBiancasâ fridge, but the referenceâs significance did not come to light until the trial. When Charles Manson and his followers faced a judge for the crimes a year later, prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi explained that the motive for the killings came from Mansonâs twisted misinterpretation of lyrics on the White Album, which was released in November 1968, months before the murders. In Mansonâs mind, benign songs like âBlackbird,â âPiggiesâ and, most prominently, âHelter Skelter,â foretold a bloody, apocalyptic race war.
But when the battle never began, he decided to kick-start it with the murders. RelatedâCharles Manson interpreted that âHelter Skelterâ was something to do with the four horsemen of the Apocalypse,â McCartney said in the 2000 book T he Beatles Anthology.
âI still donât know what all that stuff is; itâs from the Bible, âRevelationsâ â I havenât read it so I wouldnât know. But he interpreted the whole thing and arrived at having to go out and kill everyone. It was frightening, because you donât write songs for those reasons.ââIt has nothing to do with me,â said in a 1980 Playboy interview. Manson discovered the White Album in December 1968, while visiting Los Angeles on a sojourn from the freezing California desert.
When he returned to Death Valley on New Yearâs Eve, he began pressing his entourage for their reactions to the record. âAre you hep to what the Beatles are saying?â Family member Brooks Poston recalled Manson asking him, as reported in Bugliosiâs book, Helter Skelter. âHelter Skelter is coming down. The Beatles are telling it like it is.â Watkins said this was around the time, too, that Manson began using the words âhelter skelterâ to describe an oncoming racial conflict, âand what it meant was the Negros were going to come down and rip the cities all apart. Before Helter Skelter came along, all Charlie cared about was orgies.ââIt was upsetting to be associated with something so sleazy as Charles Manson,â said George Harrison.The White Album was soon resonating throughout the Manson Family.
Manson had renamed Susan Atkins âSadie Mae Glutzâ prior to the LPâs release, but the Beatlesâ inclusion of the cheeky song âSexy Sadieâ (originally written to the word âMaharishi,â referring to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who had allegedly made sexual advances on Mia Farrow) made it seem like he had divined it. He interpreted some lyrics to the love ballad âI Willâ â âYour song will fill the air/ Sing it loud so I can hear youâ â as telling him to make his own album to spread the message that he was a resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the bizarre âHoney Pieâ (McCartneyâs riff on vaudevillian music from the Twenties) with its reference to a âHollywood songâ reinforced that he was a singing messiah. He also claimed to hear messages that the Beatles were seeking him out in âDonât Pass Me By,â âYer Bluesâ and Magical Mystery Tourâs âBlue Jay Way.âThe Manson Family claimed to have sent telegrams, written letters and made phone calls to England to invite the Beatles to join them before the race war, but they didnât reach the band.
So they worked on Mansonâs album, which he hoped would be produced by Terry Melcher, the son of Doris Day, whoâd worked with the Beach Boys and lived at 10050 Cielo Drive. The recording never came to be, as Melcher severed his ties with Manson and moved out of the Cielo Drive house; Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate moved in shortly thereafter.All the while, the songs on the White Album meant more and more to Manson. Bugliosi wrote in Helter Skelter that âRocky Raccoonâ â a goofy, melodramatic number that began in India with McCartney, Lennon and Donovan making up a cowboy named Rocky Sassoon â was, to Manson, a veiled story of an African-American uprising. (The slur âcoonâ struck Manson.) ââRockyâs revivalâ â âre-vival,â it means coming back to life,â Manson told in 1970.
âThe black man is going to come back into power again.â And, to Manson, âHappiness Is a Warm Gun,â perhaps Lennonâs most double-entendre-filled song, meant âthe Beatles were telling blackie to get guns and fight whitey,â in Bugliosiâs words. Then there were the five songs Manson liked most: âBlackbird,â âPiggies,â âRevolution 1,â âHelter Skelterâ and âRevolution 9.â Mansonâs followers would later claim that he had drawn parallels between the last songâs title and the ninth chapter of the Book of Revelation, which tells of a hellish bottomless pit opening up in the world, and a plague of anthropomorphic locusts with long hair coming to torture the unfaithful until an angel blows a trumpet to God. Family member Gregg Jakobson said in Helter Skelter that Manson drew comparisons between the Bible and âthe Beatlesâ songs, the power that came out of their mouths.ââBlackbird,â McCartneyâs touching, acoustic song supporting black women during the civil rights movement in the U.S., specifically addressed, in Mansonâs mind, African-Americans viciously fighting the establishment. For Manson, it was the albumâs peak.
He thought, according to Jakobson, that âIt was the Beatlesâ way of telling people what was going to happen; it was their way of making a prophecy; it directly paralleled the Bibleâs Revelation 9.â Manson reportedly could hear pigs oinking and a manâs voice saying âriseâ deep in the trackâs machine-gun fire. In Helter Skelter, Bugliosi wrote that even he was struck by the song: âAfter having listened to it myself, I could easily believe that if ever there were such a conflict, this was probably very much what it would sound like.â But to him, it was evidence.The album became a constant soundtrack for the Manson Family, as they parsed the supposed hidden meanings the songs and how they all fit together into the blood-soaked tableau that was Mansonâs dubious beatific vision. Watkins claimed that Manson had heard a connection between âPiggies,â âHelter Skelterâ and âRevolution 9,â in a chord that was repeated between the songs â notably around the machine gunning in âRevolution 9.â It somehow spoke to Manson.âMusic gives everyone messages,â. âHow do I have to appear like Iâm some kind of maniac because I can hear something the music says? When the music says, âSomewhere over the Rainbow,â Iâm still there over the rainbow.âThe White Album became a constant soundtrack for the Manson Family.When Rolling Stone met with Manson in 1970, the reporters asked him to illustrate just how the messages all fit together.
He asked them to pick songs from the White Album, and they chose âPiggies,â âHelter Skelterâ and âBlackbirdâ â and Manson added âRocky Raccoonâ for good measure. On a piece of paper, he wrote each song title as if it were a column header, and he drew a zigzag under âHelter Skelterâ and two markings under âBlackbird,â ostensibly to notate bird sounds. âThis bottom part is the subconscious,â he said. âAt the end of each song there is a little tag piece on it, a couple of notes. Or like in âPiggiesâ thereâs âoink, oink, oink.â Just these couple of sounds. And all these sounds are repeated in âRevolution 9.â Like in âRevolution 9,â all these pieces are fitted together and they predict the violent overthrow of the white man.
Like youâll hear âoink, oink,â and then right after that, machine-gun fire: AK-AK-AK-AK-AK-AK!âAsked if he really thought the Beatles meant revolution, he said, âI think itâs a subconscious thing. I donât know whether they did or not. But itâs there. Itâs an association in the subconscious.âIt was so outlandish that, as Bugliosi put together his case against Manson and the killers, he realized he needed to take an unusual approach with the jury. âOrdinarily, I try to avoid repetitious testimony in a trial, knowing it can antagonize the jury,â he wrote in Helter Skelter.
âHowever, Mansonâs Helter Skelter motive was so bizarre that I knew if it was expounded by only one witness no juror would ever believe it.â By the time the jury deliberated, they had two requests: to visit the murder scenes and to be able to listen to the White Album.On January 25th, 1971, the jury found Manson and three other defendants guilty. That April, a judge had sentenced him and the others to death, though their sentences were commuted to life in prison when California overturned the death penalty in 1972. âI donât know what I thought when it happened,â Lennon told in 1970.
âA lot of the things he says are true: he is a child of the state, made by us, and he took their children it when nobody else would. Of course, heâs cracked all right.âAnd what of âPiggiesâ and âHelter Skelterâ? âHeâs barmy, like any other Beatle-kind of fan who reads mysticism into it,â Lennon said. âWe used to have a laugh about this, that or the other, in a light-hearted way, and some intellectual would read us, some symbolic youth generation wants to see something in it.
We also took seriously some parts of the role, but I donât know what âHelter Skelterâ has to do with knifing somebody. Iâve never listened to the words, properly, it was just a noise.âWatch below: Heâs nearly 80 and his Family is smaller, but darkness still surrounds Americaâs most notorious criminal.