Electro Funk: Calling Dr. Dre into Surgery!
World Class Wreckin’ Cru – Surgery
Records… Mixer… Turntables… Speakers… The World Class Wreckin’ Cru is calling Dr. Dre into Surgery! Seven days a week, Dre is on call to get the party people up off the wall. And with classic West Coast electro funk jams like this — along with a PhD in mixology under his belt, you know the good Dr. ain’t even gonna be breaking a sweat to get your asses shaking as he cuts the records so viciously.
The World Class Wreckin’ Cru was put together by Lonzo Williams, owner of the club Eve After Dark in Compton. He got two local DJs — Dj Yella and beatmaker extraordinaire Dr. Dre along with MC Cli-N-Tel, a high school friend of Dre and in the brief time they spent together as a crew they drove the West Coast party scene wild, rocking stages and recording some serious 808 party jams like Surgery, The Juice and House Calls. They quickly became one of Southern California’s most popular hip hop groups, along with Egyptian Lover. Uncle Jamm’s Army and the LA Dream Team.
World Class Wreckin’ Cru – Surgery
This track, Surgery is a prime example of the dope West Coast party sound that was going around at the time. Fat 808 beats, Arabian influenced synthesizer riffs and party rap on the MIC. It was released on Lonzo Williams’ own label Kru-Cut Records, which was pretty much the crew’s personal label, but also released some other, now mostly lesser known West Coast acts of the time.
The World Class Wreckin’ Cru were also the writers behind one of the first gangsta rap tracks, Eazy E – Boys ‘n The Hood, and Dre and Yella of course went on to join infamous Eazy’s CPT gangsta rap crew N.W.A, and once they turned gangsta they, well, just kind of forgot about the wreckin’ cru. Good time party jams just aren’t G enough we guess! It’s hard to hold it against Dr. Dre, since he did go on to bring us the G-Funk sound in the early 90s and he definitely kept the heat on in his production throughout the years and as you all know remained a figure in West Coast hip hop from the late 80s until today.
As for the World Class Wreckin’ Crew, Lonzo Williams went on to release the album Phases In Life, but it was pretty much a solo album and a bit of a departure from the previous Wreckin’ Cru sound.
A rare video of the World Class Wreckin’ Cru performing Surgery live!
The World Class Wreckin’ Cru | Left to right: Dr. Dre, DJ Yella, Cli-N-Tel, Lonzo Williams
World Class Wreckin’ Cru – Surgery
Yes, classic line art illustration for that 12″ …forgotten art, just like much of the cuts of those days.
“Surgery” was definitely in heavy rotation on my ghetto blaster back in the day, right up there with Egypt, Egypt and Electric Kingdom (Twilight 22). Great to see it’s still turning heads and turntables.
I won tickets to an Old School Jam some years back, and both LA Dream Team and World Class Wreckin’ Cru were in the lineup. It’s too bad Dre didn’t join up just for old times’ sake. Great show nonetheless.
Keep ‘em comin!
Yeah, all the art by Darryl Davis was really dope…actually that’s not a bad idea for a post!
Surgery is definitely a banger…and funny you should mention Electric Kingdom, nearly finished writing something on it for this week!
LA Dream Team + World Class on a bill is pretty crazy shit! how was the show, did you get photos? Yeah, it’s a shame about Dre… guess everybody has their reasons but there are a lot of fans out there who would love to see that.
peace
Man you would’ve dug that show…pure old school. Check out this lineup: Whodini, LA Dream Team, World Class Wrecking Cru, UTFO, Egyptian Lover…it was classic. By far, Egyptian Lover stole the night. UTFO was awesome, but Educated Rapper wasn’t there?!! It was nearly taboo to have them perform “Roxanne Roxanne” without the epic EMD rap and beat in the middle. Still a good performance though.
If you can post something—or anything—about Electric Kingdom, I’ll be your best friend.
Electric Kingdom was hands down my favorite jam back in the day. I had (and missed) the opportunity to buy an LP by Twilight 22 (which even had a slow jam on it) years ago at a used record store. I still don’t know why I passed it up. “Siberian Nights” was also good, but just didn’t have the same flavor, in my opinion.
Nevertheless, I still bump EK and other classics while on the road. Never grow old!