“We’d stopped selling drugs and tried to make a go at music,” Warren G says. Snoop shrugged off a short bid in County. Warren G toiled at McDonald’s, El Pollo Loco, and, eventually, a fire lookout gig at the Long Beach Naval Shipyard. Nate Dogg survived a stint in the Marines. Ducked penitentiary chances and bullets outnumbered record deals.
Underground mixtapes and local shows had only yielded minor notoriety. All I wanted was to work with him.”īut Warren G and Snoop Dogg were barely speaking that month. “He was my brother, the guy who I looked up to and learned from as a kid. “Hearing that Dre loved it was one of the happiest moments of our lives,” Warren G says. After hearing 213, the producer told Warren to come to Hollywood’s Solar Studios-and to bring his friends. In the weeks preceding the bachelor party, Dre covertly auditioned rappers for what eventually became The Chronic. Within months, he’d officially launch Death Row with bodyguard-turned-prince of darkness Suge Knight, who extricated him from his previous contract through lead-pipe diplomacy. Dre was amidst an acrimonious split from Ruthless Records. But as the '90s began, the first wave was crashing. N.W.A.'s influence was so pervasive that even people in Brooklyn (occasionally) rocked Raiders caps. Over the previous three years, Dre, Eazy-E, Ice Cube, and MC Ren infiltrated cornhusker America with Compton gangsta rap. “He was like, ‘Y’all need to get your shit together before you do what I do.’” “I’d been scared to play our music, because Dre had already shot me down a few times,” Warren G remembers, calling from his Orange County home. In the sweatshirt-less intimidating and eager to pass the blunt. Robin Hoods, Warren G was the laid-back younger brother If Dre and Snoop were mythical Gin and Juiced Dre asked: “What is this shit? It’s banging.” It was refreshing and addictive, and people began dancing. Maybe it was like being at the Atlanta soda fountain when the ex-morphine addict who invented Coca-Cola rolled up to offer the initial fix-complete with the tonic’s namesake secret ingredient. It’s hard to imagine hearing Snoop’s aftershave sneer and Nate’s bloodshot gospel for the first time. 213 was Warren G, Calvin “Snoop Doggy Dog” Broadus, and Nathaniel “Nate Dogg” Hale, lifelong friends from Pop Warner football and the streets of eastside Long Beach. Tossing a friend the car keys, Warren told him to dig the 213 demo tape out the car-quick. Life became rhythm when the night's ad-hoc DJ asked Dre's stepbrother Warren Griffin III, aka G’d Up, if he had any music. Remove the nail, and our cultural scaffolding collapses.Īt most bachelor parties, the best-case scenario is that no one contracts scabies. It’s a world minus that one little fight that made the Fresh Prince’s mom ship him to his auntie and uncle in Bel Air. Nate Dogg might have been robbed of the opportunity to mentor the gangsta-rap generation on daily weed smoking and polyamorous love. Stop for a moment and conceive an alternative history in which Dre never rolls in his '64 with Snoop Dogg-a “what if” scenario as universe-skewing as Archduke Franz Ferdinand eluding assassination, or the Portland Trail Blazers selecting Michael Jordan. Had Warren G been absent that night, the khakis of the G-Funk space-time continuum would’ve forever ceased to crease. But only the stash of cassette tapes was bare. In a Los Angeles hotel suite, the chronic sacks were fluffy, the Tanqueray was ready to sip, and the strippers poised to strip. But in late 1991, the gilded stethoscope was slipping. The mid-90s saw the release of an incredible number of important hip-hop albums- Rolling on Dubs revisits these records around their 20th anniversary, and retraces the past through a contemporary vantage point.īachelor parties hosted by Dr.
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