Dr. Dre and his longtime collaborator, Jimmy Iovine, have announced that they’ve teamed up yet again. But this time, their collaboration isn’t a musical one (well, not exactly, anyway).
According to the Los Angeles Times, who was the first to break the story, the rapper-turned-mogul and the music industry veteran will be launching a new public school in South Central Los Angeles. The school, which is scheduled to open in the fall of 2022, will be focused on the entrepreneurial spirit that propelled both these men to success from the 1980s on.
“[I want to reach] the inner-city kid, the younger me,” Dr. Dre said to the Los Angeles Times. “Here’s a place that you can go where there’s something that you can learn that you’re really interested in.”
The Los Angeles County Board of Education approved the plans for the school, and Iovine was very specific about providing the prospective students an opportunity to work for some of the coolest companies in the world. What’s more, he said, because the school is reaching underserved communities in South Central Los Angeles — specifically, Black and Latinx communities — the students would be given opportunities usually reserved for their rich, white counterparts.
“This is for kids who want to go out and start their own company or go work at a place… like Marvel, or Apple or companies like that,” said Iovine, who added that professors from USC will be contributing their expertise to the school.
USC also contributed $70 million to Regional High School No. 1 through the already-existing Iovine & Young (named for Dr. Dre, born Andre Young, and Iovine) School for the Arts.
The new school by Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine, which is currently named Regional High School No. 1, will be located at Audubon Middle School in Leimert Park, a longtime Black cultural hub, but in a larger community where many Black and Latinx students have struggled with low achievement.
