The Rise and Fall and Rise Of The D.O.C: Part 1
Ask any music nerd, and they'll tell you that N.W.A and its 5 members defined West Coast rap's future in 1989, when Straight Outta Compton hit record stores across the nation. The album was incredibly popular for many reasons, key of which was displaying the reality of Compton life to the nation's privileged, suburban masses, and greatly offending America's favorite Karens such as Tipper Gore. N.W.A was a veritable supergroup; Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, and Eazy-E became household names, and even Dj Yella and MC Ren, the two less popular members, became multimillionaires overnight when the album broke almost every record. However, one person who was instrumental to Straight Outta Compton and the groups' other masterworks has frequently been left out of the history books, being Tracy Lynn Curry, or The D.O.C.
Every meteoric rise of a musical group leaves key people in the dust; Chad Channing was left behind when Nirvana reached stardom, the Beatles had Stuart Sutcliffe and Pete Best, and N.W.A had Curry; like Sutcliffe, the main reason that Curry could not become the group's sixth member was due to tragic circumstances, which we'll get to.
Tracy Lynn Curry was born in West Dallas, Texas in 1968. He was interested in the burgeoning genre of hip-hop from a young age, and as a teenager in the Mid-80s, joined a group called the Fila Fresh Crew in Dallas. Curry, as well as his collaborators, found their break in 1987 when their producer, DJ Rock left World Class Wreckin Cru, an Electro/Dance Hip-Hop group in Los Angeles, and was replaced by a young Dr. Dre, who befriended DJ Rock.
DJ Rock recruited Curry to rap on a N.W.A. compilation album called NWA And the Posse, which released in 1987 to large local success, with the song Boyz N The Hood doing particularly well. Curry recalled in a 2026 interview that when he decided to leave for Los Angeles, he told no one & only returned after 8 months, getting a hero's welcome upon his return for staking a claim in the burgeouning West Coast rap scene.
Over the next 2 years, Curry's role in N.W.A. and the growing rap ecosystem of Los Angeles grew significantly. In 1988, Fila Fresh Crew was able to record an EP, securing a following in both Texas and California before starting to break up as Curry got more involved with N.W.A, going beyond rapping and instead leaning more into his knowledge and experience as a producer and writer to craft hooks, lyrics and beats for what would become the group's seminal work.
Straight Outta Compton may not have had The D.O.C. on the cover, but he was by all means the group's unofficial 6th member. He was a major contributor to the lyrics of Fuck Tha Police, which ended up becoming the album's most iconic and controversial track upon its release. He also was a major reason that Dr. Dre even decided to rap on the album at all; according to Curry, he was self-concious about his voice before he was convinced.
In the wake of Straight Outta Compton, Curry began living on the edge. After leaving Fila Fresh Crew, he started to work on a solo album, No One Can Do It Better, where he emphasized his southern accent & background living on the streets of Dallas as well as masterful producing skills. While much of the album has aged, the producing on tracks like Its Funky Enough and The Formula have aged like fine wine; the latter's blend between Curry and Dr. Dre's producing styles has been credited as the birth of the G-Funk style that Dre popularized with later releases like 2001.
Curry's meteoric rise was completely halted the night of November 11th, 1989, when at 3 AM, Curry, who had been partying all night and was, for lack of a better phrase, absolutely crossfaded, fell asleep behind the wheel of his car & collided with a tree head-on. Not wearing a seatbelt, it was a miracle that Curry had even survived the accident, let alone escaped any debilitating brain injuries or paralysis. However, when he came to, the doctors had one piece of devastating news for Curry; his throat had been mangled, and his voice was changed completely as a result; rapping would become incredibly difficult, if not impossible for Curry going forward.
Will The D.O.C. defy the odds and return to rapping? Will he be cast off into obscurity? Or will he find a middle ground between the two? Find out on our next edition where we look at his life after the accident.
Comments