The D.O.C. - From Tragedy to Victory

It’s taken 33 years, but The D.O.C. has finally come to terms with the horrific accident that changed his life, his career and maybe even the entire face of hip-hop.

The Dallas-born rapper and songwriter born Tracy Curry was on top of the world in 1989. He’d been recruited to Los Angeles by Dr. Dre as NWA introduced the world to West Coast rap, contributing lyrics to their seminal genre-shaping album Straight Outta Compton. On the 1st of August that year, he released his first solo album, the landmark LP No One Can Do It Better on Eazy-E’s Ruthless Records, to immediate acclaim, with famed singles including “It’s Funky Enough,” “The D.O.C. & The Doctor” and “The Formula.” His immaculate flow felt all-world, a panoptic representation of America’s exploding '80s artform: developed in Texas, inspired by New York rappers like Run-DMC, Rakim and KRS-One, fused with the budding “gangsta rap” stylings of South Central, L.A.

Then one night in November, an intoxicated Curry — drunk, high and done in from a day-long bender that included an ecstasy-fueled threesome with two women and a traffic stop in which a pair of Beverly Hills cops pulled him over and then let him go after posing for pictures — fell asleep at the wheel while speeding down the 101 highway. His car crashed into the center divider, and Curry was launched out of the back window into a tree. He woke up in the hospital without his teeth (those were lodged into tree bark) and worse, soon suffered permanent damage to his vocal cords.

Curry was spared his life at age 21, but after 21 hours of surgery repairing a crushed larynx, lost the tool that gave him his livelihood.

The now-54-year-old rap icon’s reconciliation with that tragedy was not gradual over these past 33 years. Not in the slightest. He struggled with being grateful that he was alive when he felt cursed by an accident that left him with a deep, gravelly voice.

“Bro, I just got to the grateful part,” Curry, a.k.a. “Doc,” tells us in a new interview. “Those 33 years was f***ing hell. It was really a beast. And I did every foul thing that you could do to yourself to try to get outta here. Cause that pain was tough.

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