TITLE: Why Dr. Dre Never Released 'Detox': The Perfectionism Trap
VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEw3FBpjabY

[music] You're not stuck. You're just hiding. [music] Perfectionism is dangerous. >> You know, the perfectionism is very dangerous because of course if if you're if your fidelity to perfectionism is too high, you never do anything because doing anything results it it's actually kind of tragic because it means you sacrifice how gorgeous and perfect it is in your head for what it really is. >> Perfectionism has been an ongoing struggle for me. One of the things I tell myself is I don't need to be right. I just need the opportunity to be wrong. >> I don't look at the outside very much. I look inward and try to focus on what do I feel? What am I seeing in the hopes that by sharing what's going on in me, it maybe resonates with someone else. I can't predict what someone else would like. >> RIP J Dilla. I didn't understand the big deal about Jay Dilla. And of course, over time, my mind has changed about his ability, his approach. I think that's the thing that's mostly appreciated, which is the opposite of perfectionism, you know, trying to find the most natural outcome. So the the the the sort of the the the that the preview of that drunken Dillis style that that like we perfected for Voodoo, like I thought, okay, the this is what I'm going to do. And everyone's looking at me like, what are you doing? Why are you playing? So he was trying to get as close to being real and getting the feel of real drums as possible without sounding programmed. Dr. Dre would probably be the opposite of Jay Dilla in his approach. Dre will have you in the studio for two days saying it the right way. If [laughter] he don't like the way you said it, he'll be like, "Nah, you gotta say it." If the end of a word is not annunciated, it's still taken as like dope cuz it's a vibe. It's an energy. Dre ain't going for that. He want to hear the T. He want to hear the He want to hear the dot on the eye. >> I said, "Man, I got a overbite, bro. I can't. Some of this stuff just ain't going to come through me." >> Okay. Yeah. You know, there's something to be said about a project having spirit and how you inject spirit into something is to allow the elements to be as natural as possible. Once you refine over and over again and you create a system and it goes through that process of refining over and over and over again, that takes the soul out of things. >> You said line. >> Yeah. I'm drawing >> when I wake up wrong line. >> Yeah. The line isn't wrong until you after you put the next one down. Music is the same way. The sound, you don't make bad notes that the the other the note next to the the one that you think is bad corrects the one in front. You have to be natural and yet you have to be careful not to make the mistake of being too off-handed about it because there is a certain necessary regimentation in playing. You have to have a certain amount of of control. And Joe's the type of person that would say, uh, you know, I play bad notes all the time. He'll start off by saying this. You know, it takes a big man to admit that he's wrong, but then he he has a wonderful way of saying, but I get around it by doing this. And at the end of it, you suddenly realize that this that this man's musical abilities are so vast that there is no such thing as a mistake to him. It's just something that goes leads you in another direction. creating to me is a conversation with the universe. And who wants to have a conversation with someone who doesn't speak back, but that's what happens with perfectionism. You start having a conversation with yourself and not with the universe. >> You want your things to succeed and you know like for people to see it and be awarded or whatever, but like you because you don't control any of that. The only thing you can control is the process. you know, making something is really just about like learning about yourself and your relationship to the world. You know, those are the things I tell myself so I can sleep at night. >> A lot of people look at an industry, the art industry, fine arts, um music industry, film industry. People look at these industries as as this big building with one door. But these industries are not they're not buildings. They're more like open fields. You release your work to the world and the everyday people speak so loudly that the gatekeepers come looking for this person. >> The people whose approval you're desperately seeking are usually the ones least qualified to give it. You're asking emotionally starving people to feed you, seeking validation from individuals who can't even validate themselves. One of the things that leads to perfectionism is being in a room where you're consistently judged or you feel like you're being judged. You know, you can't give the internet too much power. If I put this out to the world, what is the worst it can do? >> Here's the coefficient that makes it all work is the audience. You know, you haven't you can think about these things alone and a lot of times you are. And then you take it out in front of people and you go this works or this doesn't work. And it's a combination of okay, this might be the wrong audience for this routine or this is the perfect group to do it for. And then it's just a question of, you know, truly if you're willing to take the chance and if and if you feel like it's right and sometimes it is and other times it isn't, then you'll know pretty quickly. And it's a question if you have the courage to keep going with it or actually and or the intelligence to let it go. >> Look at celebrities whose public image is focusing on perfectionism. When the audience finds out that they're not perfect, it's always huge news. And if you think about even Tiger Woods, he was like the perfect person, the perfect athlete. Then he had his issue with his wife and it turned into huge news. [music] Take someone like Dennis Rodman. Take someone like Allan Iverson. These guys came in with low expectations because they came into the league and they didn't hide any personal flaws. [music] So when bad events happened to them in their life, it was never big giant news. >> Do you think you were looking for these characters or were these characters kind of born out of the place that you were in? >> Yeah, they they they're attracted to whatever that magnetism is at that time. You know, I don't really look for things >> and it's the same with painting and sculpting and whatever. I'll just start and I and and it hap h happens that later on my subconscious mind told me something >> just like the scripts tell me something about where I was at you know and so they find me >> there's no correction before expression that's how you know you're dealing with someone with fear express it in a zeitgeist and you improve over time >> sorry what happened >> I mean two things like it's hard for me to listen to myself. >> And then the second thing, which is probably why the first thing is true, is like I just hear mistakes and things I could do better. It's like, "Oh, okay." >> What mistakes do you hear in this recording? >> Well, it's not that it's a mistake because it's probably the most perfect. I'm just kidding. Um, [laughter] no, I just, you know, you just hear things that that you could, you say, "Oh, I could have did this or I could have did that." You know what I'm saying? It's like I'm constantly constantly uh painting. >> Creativity really is a continuum. It's a lot of pressure to think that you should create something from nothing >> as everything Beethoven did. Uh it is a gloss on something that had been done and a revolutionary step of breaking out of the mold. But the mold is always visible behind what he does. >> You have to give it to the world. If you don't it, you know, it dies in your computer, it dies on your hard drive, it dies in your garage. And what sense does that make? Don't hesitate to give feedback, comment, like, subscribe, and share with others if you think it'll help other people. That's all I have today. Peace. >> Be appointed hand of the king. [music]