A novel by Tripp Mickle called After Steve: How Apple Became a Trillion-Dollar Company and Lost Its Soul revealed why former Interscope executive Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre’s business deal with Apple failed to make Dre the first billionaire in hip-hop history and passed the title to Andre Young.
According to iMore, the story unfolded in Chapter 10. Mickle wrote that Apple wanted to join the music streaming business but faced difficulties. Enter Beats by Dre, which drew in CEO Tim Cook because of Beat’s playlists curated by real people. Iovine didn’t make it easy for Cook and urged him to buy Beats Music and Beats Electronic. Cook caved and agreed to the price of $3.2 billion in 2014.
“It was a sum that Iovine and Dre could barely fathom,” Mickle wrote in the book, according to iMore. “As the lawyers worked through final details, Iovine summoned the leadership team of Beats to his home near Beverly Hills. He told everyone that they were on the cusp of finalizing a massive deal. The only thing that could spoil it would be for word of the deal to leak.”
Iovine was very serious to where he pulled Goodfellas as a reference.
“Remember that scene in Goodfellas where Jimmy tells the guys, ‘Don’t buy any fires. Don’t buy any furs. Don’t buy any cars. Don’t get showy?” Iovine said. “Don’t move.”
At 2 a.m. the following morning, Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs phoned Iovine to inform him of a video Dr. Dre and Tyrese posted to Facebook about the deal and bragging about being drunk on Heineken.
“Billionaire boys club for real, homie,” the “Sweet Lady” singer said in the video. “Fix your face, fix your face.”
Dr. Dre injected, “You know that.”
“Oh, s**t, the Forbes list just changed,” Tyrese stated drunkenly. “They came out like two weeks ago. They need to update the Forbes list. S**t just changed.”
“In a big way. Understand that,” Dr. Dre claimed. “The first billionaire in hip hop right here from the motherf**king west coast. Believe.”
The video disappointed Cook but was an advantage for the tech company. They used the leaked video to cut the price by $200 million. Staff at Beats say that Apple purposefully reduced the deal by $200 million to ensure the “Still D.R.E.” rapper didn’t become the first hip-hop billionaire.
Last year, Tyrese went on Faq Podcast and explained that after the video was made, Dr. Dre looked over the video a few times before posting it.
” I was not stupid enough to upload a video,” Tyrese said. “I would have never uploaded a video without the okay.”
