If you have listened to a popular song made over the last 25 years, there is a good chance either Andre “Dr. Dre” Young and/or former Interscope Records chairman Jimmy Iovine had a hand and ear in it. Soon, you will be able to see just how deep that musical partnership goes. HBO will delve into how Iovine and Dre bucked conventions to become multi-millionaire music moguls in The Defiant Ones, a four-part documentary series.
Directed by Menace II Society co-director Allen Hughes, the documentary series will chronicle Dre and Iovine’s 25-year relationship. The Defiant Ones will include never-before-seen footage of the two producers working in the studio with legends like U2, Bruce Springsteen, and the gangster rap originators NWA, among a hall of fame list of others. To give you a glimpse into how far back the documentary will go, the trailer features grainy VHS footage of a young Dr. Dre behind the microphone in the early 1990s.
When you have been entrenched in the music industry for as long as the two men responsible for hundreds of millions of records being sold, you tend to have a few music icons ready to sing your praises. The Defiant Ones will feature interviews from Dr. Dre protege Eminem, Nas, Ice Cube, David Geffen, Tom Petty, and a litany of other legendary acts.
The trailer suggests The Defiant Ones will spend time on the pair’s historic $3 billion sale of its Beats Electronics, and subsequent move to Apple Music. However, the documentary will be premiered on HBO, instead of the pair’s burgeoning streaming platform. But HBO has a vastly wider reach with an estimated 134 million subscribers worldwide compared to Apple Music’s more than 20 million subscribers. Apple Music may not be premiering the retrospective doc on two of its biggest executives, but it will be the first to stream Sean “P. Diddy” Combs’ documentary Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop, a 25-year retrospective on his Bad Boy Records.
The Defiant Ones will air on HBO on four consecutive nights from July 9 t July 12 at 9 p.m. (ET).
