"I Need a Doctor", is the second official single by Dr. Dre from his third and final studio album, Detox. The song features
rapper Eminem and Skylar Grey, and is produced by Alex da Kid.It has sold more than 1 million copies in the United States
alone
Background
The official version premiered through Dre's official website.It was produced by English producer Alex da Kid, who is known
for co-writing Eminem's hit single "Love the Way You Lie". Kid told MTV News about the experience of working with Dre.
"That was amazing. He's one of my favorite producers of all time. Everybody knows how much of a perfectionist he is: He's
been working on his album for 11 years. For him to bring me in, trust me, not micro-manage me, and let me bring what I do
to the table, I can't even describe how that makes me feel." The song contains the rapper Eminem rapping two verses about
his mentor, thanking Dre for believing in him in his early days and returning the favor, before Dre delivers the song's
final verse.
Music video
The video was shot with Allen Hughes, the director behind Menace II Society and The Book of Eli. The video premiered on
February 24, 2011. The video begins with an introduction of his music career, such as when he and fellow N.W.A. member DJ Yella were in the 80's funk group World Class Wreckin' Cru. There are also scenes of Dr. Dre and his family, such as him
hugging his daughter and son and getting married to his wife.
There are also snippets from past music videos. It includes many rappers such as Tupac Shakur, Eazy-E, The D.O.C, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Xzibit and all the rest of the members from N.W.A. The video then features Dr. Dre driving down the Pacific Coast Highway (aka California State Route 1 in Southern California) in a Ferrari, with flashbacks of his life, crashing his car and the last thing heard was his daughter say "Good Night Daddy." Then he is transported to a medical facility. The
date at the beginning of the video is February 18, 2001 (his 36th birthday). They fastforward to present day, where he has
been hospitialized and is on life support.The Marin County Civic Center stands in for the medical facility.
Eminem raps next to him as he is floating in an isolation tank, during which the figure of The Pythia (played by Canadian
actress Estella Warren) is singing as a hologram behind and over Dre, mouthing the words to Skylar Grey's vocal part in the song. Skylar Grey herself appears as one of the doctors in the video, but never actually appears singing her part. Dre
eventually wakes up and goes through rehab, and the video ends with him standing next to the grave of Eazy-E, a rapper who had launched Dre's music career by founding N.W.A and was also a member along with Dre, Ice Cube, MC Ren and DJ Yella.
Product placement
The music video received complaints of being an "act of advertising" for a variety of products from Ferrari to
Hewlett-Packard and Gatorade
Critical reception
Nick Levine of Digital Spy gave the song a very positive review - rating the song five stars out of five; "Why is 'I Need A
Doctor' such a brilliant single? Well, first of all there's the production from British knob-twiddling whizz Alex da Kid,
which has a similar gravitas and bone-rattling bombast to his work on 'Love the Way You Lie' and 'Airplanes'. Then there's
the haunting chorus, delivered by Diddy's 'Coming Home' bud Skylar Grey, which inhabits you from first listen. However,
what elevates 'I Need A Doctor' from "very good" to "a little bit special" are the performances of Dre and Em. That single
manly tear dribbling down your cheek? Entirely, entirely justified."
General
Complete name:Dr. Dre ft. Eminem and Skylar Gray -I Need A Doctor(Explicit).avi
Format : AVI
Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave
File size : 131 MiB
Duration : 7mn 36s
Overall bit rate : 2 409 Kbps
Video
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Format : MPEG-4 Visual
Codec ID : MP42
Codec ID/Info: Microsoft MPEG-4 v2 (pre-standard)
Codec ID/Hint: Microsoft
Duration : 7mn 36s
Bit rate : 2 267 Kbps
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio: 16:9
Frame rate : 30.000 fps
Compression mode: Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame): 0.082
Stream size : 123 MiB (94%)
Audio
ID : 1
Format : MPEG Audio
Format version: Version 1
Format profile: Layer 3
Mode : Joint stereo
Mode extension: MS Stereo
Codec ID : 55
Codec ID/Hint: MP3
Duration : 7mn 36s
Bit rate mode: Constant
Bit rate : 128 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Compression mode: Lossy
Stream size : 6.97 MiB (5%)
Alignment : Aligned on interleaves
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