The hip hop culture has known its fair share of tragedies. From RZA losing 300 beats in a flood to Biggie and 2Pac being slain in their prime, there are plenty of opportunities for hip hop fans to think “What if..?” One of the greatest “What if..?” scenarios has always been, “What if… The D.O.C. never lost his voice?”

Right at the center of the birth of West Coast hip hop, Doc (as he is also known) is at least partially responsible for most of NWA’s success. The Dallas rapper was called in for support on writing iconic verses for Ice Cube, Eazy-E and Dr. Dre. On the release of his own solo album, Doc said:

For me, you know, it was a pride thing, right? When Eric [Eazy-E]did his record and we did the N.W.A. record. Then they go to press — nobody mentions my name, I have to stand out of frame and they talking about these songs that they wrote but they didn’t write ’em. You know, it bothered me. It made me feel like you were trying to squeeze me out.

So The D.O.C. released No One Can do it Better, produced by Dr. Dre, in 1989. This debut album hit number 1 on the Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop chart but only a few months later a car crash damaged his vocal chords, leaving Doc with a weak and deeply raspy voice.

On Sway’s radio show, Sway in the Morning, The D.O.C. opens up about how he went through the aftermath of the car crash.

I was actually ashamed to go home so I just stayed on the West Coast and tried to figure out how I could get back to the day before the wreck.[…] You know trying to hold on to that old thing kept me from going forward. But, being in that state of mind, it made me grow closer to Dre and try to help give him and guys like Snoopy — if I couldn’t have it, then they were gonna have it.

Check out The D.O.C. in an old interview to hear how his voice turned out and the pain it takes for him to speak about it.

A golden voice with killer flow, never to be heard again on a hip hop track except for a failed comeback attempt in 1996 with Helter Skelter. But over the past few years, the D.O.C. has been turning the tragedy into a success story of perseverance.

Speaking to Noisy in 2015, after the D.O.C. announced he was coming with new music and had been performing already, he said:

It doesn’t matter if I come back and I’m the greatest of all time. That’s not what this is about. This is for people who are struggling, finding their way through it, and realizing that there’s something spiritual about all of us. It’s for someone struggling with depression or substance abuse, domestic abuse — anything that you’re stuck in the middle of. If you are spiritual and faithful about your situation, you’ll make it through it. And my life is a testimony to that.

While Doc is humble enough to credit his progress to faith, and often to God, let it be known that it must have taken immense effort on his part to get where he is now. At the moment, The D.O.C. has not released any new solo work but recently fans were treated to a potential return of the golden voice on the instagram page of Erykah Badu, who was with him for several years and is the mother of his daughter.

What the future holds for this hip hop legend is unknown. All we know is it will be inspiring for fans and anyone going through their own struggles.