Anderson .Paak is a rare talent, but it took him a long road to get to where he is today. However, he never stopped grinding, and once his work finally caught the attention of Dr Dre, everything clicked into place.
He first took flight on his musical journey as a teenager when he began cooking beats in his bedroom, as well as drumming at his local church. Although he knew it was his destiny to be an artist from that point, life had other plans.
He was forced to become a provider for his family when his wife, Jae Lin, gave birth to their eldest in 2011, and music was yet to become a viable income, so he took up a job at a marijuana farm. However, his employers later terminated his role, a decision that temporarily left him, his wife, and their infant son homeless.
Resiliently, Paak never gave up, and there soon became a buzz about him on the local L.A. circuit. Shafiq Husayn of Sa-Ra, and Los Angeles based rapper Dumbfoundead, offered him a helping hand by giving him a creative job as an assistant, videographer, editor, writer and producer.
This role gave him the freedom to start spending more time on developing his sound, and he released his debut mixtape, O.B.E. Vol. 1, on June 30, 2012.
Following the release of his debut studio album Venice in 2014, although it didn’t chart, Paak’s work managed to capture the ear of Dre, and despite being an unknown talent, he took him under his wing.
The N.W.A. maestro then recruited him to sing on six tracks on his 2015 album, Compton, which brought Paak to the attention of a whole new audience.
After his next album, Malibu, Paak was snapped up to Aftermath, and Dre even produced his 2018 effort, Oxnard. Speaking to The Guardian in 2016 about their relationship, Paak said: “If he’d called five years ago, I don’t think I’d have been ready. When I finally met him, for some reason, I didn’t have any super-fanboy jitter thing where I couldn’t be myself.
He added: “I was so confident by that point I just said: ‘Let me get on the mic and try something.’ And I remember closing my eyes and going off the top and then opening them, and it was like, ‘Whooaaaahhh!!'”
Their relationship has only grown to prosper further, with the two linking up for an online extension of GTA. Dre also included Paak in his Super Bowl halftime show, which says precisely how much he admires his accomplished pupil.
