Compton High School celebrated one of its most famous alumni when construction started on the Andre “Dr. Dre” Young Performing Arts Center. The $200 million facility is part of a larger school renovation stemming from a partnership between public and private sector, and included a $10 million donation from Young himself.

At the groundbreaking ceremony Young said,

I was an artistic kid in school with no outlet for it. I knew I had something special to offer to the world, but with nothing to support my gift, schools left me feeling unseen. I’ve always wondered how much further ahead I might have been had the resources I needed in school were available. If I had learned more about the business industry, I would have saved myself [an] extreme amount of time, money and [made] a lot of friendships.

As a founding member of the seminal rap group NWA and a leading producer in the wave of west coast hip-hop, Dr. Dre’s constant shouts out to Compton made the city virtually synonymous with his brand of music. His already large music profile swelled after the release of 2015 NWA biopic Straight Outta Compton. That same year he also released solo album Compton, the proceeds from royalties of which he promised to allocate toward the new school campus.