Dr. Dre’s Assault On Dee Barnes Began Hip-Hop’s Ethical Decline Speech Says

Former Pump It Up! host Dee Barnes was brutally attacked by Dr. Dre in 1991. Though she filed and civil go well with in opposition to the well-known Hip-Hop mogul and gained, Barnes was basically blackballed by the business. In 2019, Barnes revealed she was homeless and will barely afford to purchase groceries. A narrative written by AllHipHop‘s Kyle Eustice through which Barnes talked about her plight went viral and it finally led to an look on The Wendy Williams Present.

On Friday (February 23), Barnes shared a clip of Williams addressing the story as information of the troubled discuss present host’s well being points hit the web. She wrote within the caption, “Thanks once more. #wendywilliams.” Upon seeing the clip, Arrested Growth’s Speech posted a part of Barnes’ look on the present. Within the video, she described the evening Dr. Dre assaulted her. Visibly emotional, she recalled him following her into the lavatory, the place the assault continued.

As Speech defined in his caption, the Arrested Growth visionary believes that evening marked a transparent shift within the path Hip-Hop was going.

“I’ve recognized this sista for many years, this violence perpetrated in opposition to her by Dr. Dre is reality – not gossip,” he wrote. “(In keeping with Wikipedia) January 27, 1991, Dr. Dre encountered Barnes at a document launch social gathering in Hollywood. In keeping with Barnes, he picked her up by her hair and ‘started slamming her head and the suitable facet of her physique repeatedly in opposition to a brick wall close to the stairway’ as his bodyguard held off the group with a gun.

“After Dr. Dre tried to throw her down the steps and failed, he started kicking her within the ribs and fingers. She escaped and bumped into the ladies’s restroom. Dr. Dre adopted her and ‘grabbed her from behind by the hair once more and proceeded to punch her behind the top.’ Lastly, Dre and his bodyguard ran from the constructing. And she or he wasn’t protected nor correctly redeemed by Hip-Hop, rap, the Black neighborhood nor regulation enforcement. This incident was (IMO) the start of when hip-hop misplaced its ethical compass. We’d like discover our manner once more.”

View this put up on Instagram

A put up shared by Speech (@speech__)

Dr. Dre addressed his violent previous in a 2017 episode of HBO’s The Defiant Ones, saying, “Any man that places his fingers on a feminine is a f##king fool, he’s out of his f##king thoughts. I used to be out of my f##king thoughts on the time, I f##ked up. I paid for it, I’m sorry for it, and I apologize for it. I’ve this darkish cloud that follows me and it’s gonna be hooked up to me endlessly. It’s a serious blemish on who I’m as a person.”

However the injury was carried out. Following the assault, Barnes was having hassle discovering work in her subject, which finally led to her precarious monetary scenario.

“Every part was gradual,” Barnes mentioned in a 2017 interview. “Folks weren’t carrying cell telephones. If that may have occurred now, folks would have filmed it and it might have been on video. It wasn’t all around the web, however it was a gradual factor. There have been lots of people from the East Coast on the social gathering as a result of it was earlier than the American Music Awards, so by the point the awards occurred, it was being unfold all over the place by phrase of mouth. By 2000, all the pieces was up. We had blogs and issues of that nature. The highlight wasn’t on me due to my TV present now, it was due to what occurred and who it was with.”

Barnes filed prison prices in opposition to Dre and a civil go well with adopted. They settled out of court docket in 1993, however over time, Dr. Dre, MC Ren and Eazy-E had turned the incident right into a joke. Actually, in an 1991 interview with Rolling Stone, Dre diminished it to “no huge factor,” whereas Ren mentioned the “b#### deserved it.”

So as to add insult to harm, Eminem’s 1999 observe “Responsible Conscience” that includes Dr. Dre reduces her to a popular culture reference with the road, “You gonna take recommendation from any individual who slapped Dee Barnes?”

“Whilst I used to be shifting on with my life, eight years later, Dre makes that observe with Eminem,” she mentioned. “Thoughts you, I’m residing my life after the very fact. Technically, the trial was two years of my life I can by no means get again. No person talks about that. In the event you step again, you might see I should have forgave him a very long time in the past as a result of there was nothing vengeful about my conduct, you are feeling me? There was no smear marketing campaign. My concern was it went from bodily abuse to psychological abuse with that music.”

Extra just lately, Barnes mentioned the Recording Academy naming an award after Dr. Dre—the Dr. Dre Affect Award—which was simply given to JAY-Z on February 4.

“All people needs to separate the artwork from the artist, and generally that’s simply not potential,” Barnes instructed Rolling Stone. “Most individuals with out a data of [Dr. Dre’s] historical past are going to say, ‘Oh, he should deserve that. He have to be such a fantastic individual for them to place an award in his identify.’ However they named this award after an abuser.

“It wasn’t only a one or two-time factor; these are decisions. The primary time, it’s possibly a mistake. The second time, okay. The third time, it’s a alternative. I’m not saying he is identical individual now, although. I don’t know. I’m not round him anymore. I haven’t talked to him. However to call an award after somebody with that kind of historical past within the music business, you would possibly as properly name it the ‘Ike Turner Award.’”