Still at the start of their careers and with only a makeshift studio in Cool’s parents’ garage, the creation of “Hate It Or Love It” came after Cool picked up a 3-inch pile of vinyls at a mom and pop store during a visit to Tallahassee, Florida. You had to be extraordinary just to make a dent.” Being in the midst of all that forced you to be great. You had Kanye West, Scott Storch, and Lil Jon just breaking through too. “The people me and Cool were trying to emulate were the guys who weren’t just dominating rap but were making rock and pop hits too. “We came up a time where the ‘Super Producer’ tag held a lot of weight,” Dre said. Yet their beats also possessed the China White-raw, cinematic sheen of all those great gangster rap records. Having both grown up in North Miami, the pair naturally channelled the euphoria of Miami bass and the sweaty nightlife of the Floridan City via their distinctive popping hi-hats. T heir sound had to be luxurious and glamorous, but also sticky and sun-kissed. Obsessed with gangster movies, Cool and Dre wanted their production to replicate the feeling of Sharon Stone sauntering through the Las Vegas desert in a mink coat during Martin Scorsese’s Casino. But with no budget to work with producers, the pair purchased a second hand keyboard and took matters into their own hands. They ended up singing in an R&B group, where they aspired to be the Hispanic-equivalent of Boyz II Men. Their love for hip hop grew from playing x-rated gangster rap records by N.W.A and the 2 Live Crew out a boombox over at Cool’s house, where his parents were none the wiser due to their poor grasp of English. The pair met at high school and were united by their shared love of hustling on the playground - Dre sold pieces of pizza to his friends at a profit, while Cool sold his DJ mixtapes with artwork he made on the school photocopier. ”Ĭool and Dre’s ascent into rap production royalty is a tale of perseverance. We were blessed to have those two songs out right at the start of our production careers, as they both sounded so different and showed our range. Game was the hottest new artist and 50 was the biggest artist on the planet, so ‘Hate It Or Love It’ was just perfect timing. There’s 100 stories of wild things that happened behind the scenes after ‘New York’ and ‘Hate It Or Love It’ dropped, and a lot of real life shit went down, too. “But even though it was supposed to unite the city, it actually ended up tearing it apart. “They had dug a 30-foot ditch for Ja Rule, so the song ‘New York’ had a huge impact,” Dre said. Having produced “ New York ” and “Hate It Or Love It”, which were both released within a three month span, Cool and Dre were caught in a strange position.

But after Game publicly refused to condemn Jadakiss and Fat Joe for teaming up with 50’s arch nemesis Ja Rule on the rousing 2004 single “ New York,” the G-Unit general cut him off over a perceived lack of loyalty. The Game was supposed to be 50 Cent’s G-Unit representative on the West Coast and the pair’s chemistry was so natural, many expected them to dominate mainstream rap together. The transition from the two rappers relinquishing their teenage demons (“Coming up I was confused, my mommy kissing a girl” spits 50) to embracing their unexpected rise beyond the summit of the rap game was motivational for everyone who pressed play. Released at the start of the year, “Hate It Or Love It,” the third single from the West Coast rapper’s much-hyped Aftermath Records’ debut, The Documentary, combined inner-city defiance with an infectious, soulful instrumental.

The song was so big, I guess they had no choice but to do it. “They superimposed them together in the low-rider with green screen,” adds Cool. “They couldn’t bear to be in the same room together.” “I hate to break the news, but those guys had to shoot their parts for that music video separately,” says the song’s co-producer Dre, one half of Miami-based rap production duo Cool and Dre.

Yet the classic music video for The Gameand 50 Cent’s “Hate It Or Love It,” which features the two rappers riding through each other’s respective hoods like blood brothers, was all an illusion. In 2005, New York and Compton briefly united for the kind of rap anthem that is so charming you could comfortably play it at a family BBQ without receiving any strange looks from the over-70s. For Behind The Beat, Thomas Hobbs spoke with Cool and Dre about producing The Game and 50 Cent’s “Hate It Or Love It,” the best rags-to-riches song since The Notorious B.I.G.’s “Juicy.”

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