Dr. Dre shouts out Eminem at the 2023 Grammy Awards event

Ahead of the 2023 Grammy Awards, the Black Music Collective celebrates the organization’s mission of advancing Black music with a concert-style event honoring Missy Elliott, Lil Wayne, Dr. Dre, and Sylvia Rhone. Snoop Dogg and Busta Rhymes were among the performers at the show.

During his acceptance speech, Dre said: “My musical journey started with me wanting to find something that I could be good at simply so I could earn enough money to buy a decent pair of shoes just to be able to wear to school. I was in junior high school the first time I had ever heard hip-hop for the first time. I heard mixing and scratching, and I couldn’t get enough of that sound. And once I got my hands on the turntables, I knew I had found my wings and I was determined to learn how to fly.”

Then he continued: “I fell in love with the idea of manipulating sound and taking those different sounds and putting them together like a puzzle to make a song. I studied engineering for years and years and years, and from there I realized that I could take or hear a snippet of a sound and use that to create something entirely new. And then boom — I became a producer.”

The 7-time Grammy-winning producer also gave a shout out to his protegee, long-time collaborator and friend, Eminem, who is 15-times Grammy winner himself: “Eminem brought hip-hop to middle America and offered kids who looked like him the way to connect to it.”

Watch the video below: