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Hey, this Nate Dogg. Blow some stuff, Doctor.
I got my natural in effect for the Nine Trey.
Y'all recordin' audio on this motherfucker?
Warren G, got the tape?
- Right here. - Put it on.
One thing about magic, when you makin' magic,
the ingredients sometimes don't come with instructions.
You just gotta know how to put that shit together.
♪ Now I lay me down to sleep ♪
♪ Ooh, I just can't Find a beat ♪
- ♪ Flash light ♪ - ♪ Ohh I will never dance ♪
♪ Flash light ♪
♪ Ha-da-da-dee-da Hada-hada-da-da ♪
♪ Oh it's no use ♪
- ♪ Flash light ♪ - ♪ Red light ♪
- ♪ Neon light ♪ - ♪ Ooh stop light ♪
♪ Now I lay me down to sleep ♪
♪ I guess I'll go Count the sheep ♪
♪ Oh but I will never dance ♪
♪ Everybody gotta Feel the light ♪
♪ Under the sun ♪
♪ Summertime ♪
♪ Yeah this is C-Knight From The Dove Shack ♪
♪ Gettin' dojahed out ♪
♪ Kickin' it at King's Park With all the homies ♪
♪ Shit. Hey you know what I'm sayin' ♪
♪ So why don't you, uh ♪
♪ Check out my homie Bo to the Roc ♪
♪ Hear this little solo thing ♪
♪ I ride with the I slide with the ♪
♪ Locs and doggs From the LBC ♪
♪ All of the tricks Wanna kick it with me ♪
♪ 'Cause I run with Warren G ♪
♪ Braid your weaves Bustaz and G's ♪
I was raised off of 21st & Lewis,
pretty rough side of the east side of Long Beach.
- ♪ East Siders ♪ - ♪ East Siders ♪
Growing up on the east side, it was fun. It was cool.
Lotta sports, activities. Ways to make money.
No matter what it was, you know, we could get that at King Park.
King Park was the epicenter
of where all our relationships started.
- It was our home. - ♪ Let me hear you say ♪
♪ Ooh ooh ooh ooh oh ♪
♪ Ahh ahh ahh ahh ahh ♪
♪ Summertime in the LBC ♪
I would walk to school in the morning,
me and my sister,
Snoop and his mom...
His mom used to walk him across the park
to go to school at the same time.
So we used to see each other goin' across the park.
When we would see each other at King Park,
we would always, you know, click and hang out.
It was every time you seen Warren, you seen Snoop,
every time you seen Snoop, you seen Warren.
United Teens was a man named Jeff in a blue van.
We called the van the Voltron,
and we was the Voltron Crew.
He used to pick us up,
take us to different neighborhoods to sell candy.
We would work real hard,
we would sell all of the candy
that's in the boxes,
and all we would get out of the deal
was, like, $25, maybe.
You know, we'd go to school, $15, $20,
you ballin', you know what I'm sayin'?
And we was able to, you know,
learn how to hustle, learn how to communicate
and have dialog and dialect.
And to be articulate, knockin' on doors,
"Hi, Ma'am, we're with United Teens,"
and learnin' how to sell product
and, you know, look somebody in the eye.
And that went a long way with us
because it was like a skill
that wasn't being handed down in the neighborhood.
Nobody was teaching this.
And most of the guys that did that,
back when we were kids,
all of them niggas got money or got jobs.
He gave us the opportunity to make something,
even though he was makin' a lot of money off of us.
We weren't smart enough to understand everything.
Towards the late seventies,
music had begin to change, and
hip-hop was being created.
You could just see breakdancin'
and pop-lockin' and rappin',
you know, become the new sensation in the neighborhood.
And when it comes to hip-hop,
it was New York and Philly
that really connected.
That was the core of it.
And the record company, mainly the majors,
they only sold it as vinyl,
'cause they didn't think that
hip-hop and rap music could sell albums.
And that was the pioneering era.
You know, hip-hop,
when it came out in the eighties,
it... it gave us new hope.
You got to remember that before rap,
you had to be in a band.
You know, you had to really play instruments.
If you couldn't sing
or you couldn't play no instrument,
you couldn't be in the music business.
You know, not as an entertainer.
Hip-hop changed all that.
You know, say, yo, if you got this other skill...
You know, if you can make records like this,
you know, you can hit the same stage
as Prince and Michael Jackson,
and, you know, all the stars of the day.
And that was the breakaway thing with hip-hop.
Average kids were able to make a form of music.
Being in school, helped me a lot as a rapper,
because battle rap was like,
you know, your 15 minutes of fame back then
as far as having a record deal.
Nobody really had deals back then.
So I entered into the battle rap world.
When you're an amateur, that's all you got.
'Cause you gonna make your mark at nutrition
or at lunch on the same quad.
You know, everybody gonna get around and rap
and gonna see who the best.
It's like a gang fight.
You know, after school you're ready to rumble.
And sometimes you win, sometimes you might lose,
sometimes you might have a fight.
Snoop was just... was so talented, you know.
And I was his hype-man/security/MC,
just, you know, talkin' to the crowd.
I would call his battles out.
You know, I would tell him like,
"Snoop, da-da-da-da wanna battle.
Let's go get him."
Warren G was like Don King or a promoter,
'cause he would always, you know,
say, "My homeboy could do this and do this."
And I'd be like, "Hold up, Snoop.
Wait a minute. What's that right there?"
And I would rap about whatever he was pointin' at.
"Hey, Snoop, what about that right there?"
"Oh, you talkin' about the water bottle?"
Goin' off on him, off a bottle. Dogg would bust like that.
And he'd be like, "Hey, Snoop, what about this Chinese food?"
And he would rap about it
and break it down.
And make it work towards whoever he's battling.
It was incredible the things that he could do.
As far as Nate, Nate came from Mississippi as a kid,
and he rode right into what was goin' on.
First time I met Nate Dogg was,
uh, Poly High School in 1986.
We had a science class.
I was beatin' on the table, I think
to a Rakim song that came out, "I Ain't No Joke,"
and I was doin' that beat on the table,
and I was rappin' and freestylin'.
And Nate was sittin', like, right on the side of me.
And he started, like, singin' and freestylin'.
And we just... we jammed.
Snoop was like, "Man, you need to get down with me and Warren."
♪ Back in the days At Poly High ♪
♪ Yo, check me, yo ♪
♪ Back in the days At Poly High ♪
♪ Got to get your scrap on Do or die yo ♪
♪ Back in the days At Poly High ♪
♪ Old school Old school mother... ♪
I didn't even know that Nate could sing like that.
The soulfulness that was comin' from his voice
was just... was incredible.
♪ Just woke up Off my bed ♪
♪ And to my surprise ♪
♪ I had to brace myself ♪
♪ I couldn't believe my eyes ♪
Hey! This shit burn my motherfuckin' eyes, man!
♪ She said to listen homes ♪
Nate Dogg was lettin' me use his car for the prom,
'cause I didn't have no car.
And we used his car for, um, grad night
or whatever that was when you go to Magic Mountain,
and we dogged his shit out.
I mean, me and Warren G drove that mothafucka
till the brakes was gone.
And that was like...
That was like the first time 213 was really like...
We got a group, man.
And, uh, we just started creatin'.
And we liked the group 415,
which was from the Bay Area,
so we was like, "Shit, we gonna be 213,"
'cause we from Southern California.
Nate was the soulful vocalist,
but keeping it gangster at the same time.
I was the producer/artist/DJ,
and Snoop was just like the architect, the player,
the pimp, the gangster, all in one.
We wasn't shit until we all came together
and took all of those powers and maximized our strengths.
You know, people knew who we were,
so we would come in the club
and come in and just turn the whole club upside down.
You know, and I set it off.
♪ You drink whiskey I drink wine ♪
♪ Come on everybody It's gangster time ♪ Boom!
You know, those were,
like, some of the funnest times of my life.
It was just Snoop, Nate Dogg, Warren G,
always was about the group. All of us.
Music, family, you know, and just friends.
That's what it was.
That's how we became popular in the city.
You know, that's when 213
actually started to mean something.
Naturally the neighborhood loved it, but...
it's trying to get the world to love it.
And once we would take our cassette
to certain people and have meetings with record labels
or executives or whatnot,
or people that we could get to at that time,
we weren't what they were lookin' for. Never.
Dre came into my life,
I probably was around
seven, eight years old.
My father married Andre's mom.
I didn't have no brothers.
People say they're brothers,
people say they're step-brothers,
I say they're brothers.
They grew up in the same house, so...
Dre, at the time, too,
was really trying to figure out, you know, his path in the game.
You know, I mean, he was producing
World Class Wreckin' Cru's stuff,
but I don't know if his heart was totally into that style.
So he started working with Eazy-E and me
and started doing the NWA thing.
The World Class Wreckin' Cru and the NWA,
they inspired us a lot, you know.
We was around that and just wanted to be like them.
Oftentimes, Warren would come to the studio to hang out with us.
Um, this was before Death Row.
I mean, you know, I knew Warren G was...
He was always there. So I never not saw him.
We shot Dre a tape of some of the music that we had, but...
I don't even know if he listened to it or he...
He did or he didn't.
He was just like...
Snoop used to get discouraged a lot,
you know, because wasn't nothin' happenin'.
My mind was tellin' me, you know,
"Man, fuck this rap shit. Ain't no money in it."
So I would give up
and not focus on my craft.
At one point, I had got so frustrated
where I just took all of my rhymes,
I had about, like, 100 raps all wrote down on paper.
I just took all them motherfuckers
and just threw them in the trash,
like, "Fuck this shit. It's all what..."
And motherfuckin' Warren G went in that motherfucker
and pulled all them out of the trashcan.
All of them.
It's like, you know,
to be able to believe in somebody
to where it's like, "You know what,
I can't let you give up
because your dream is our dream.
If you make it, we make it."
You had three guys that, you know, was talented,
but at the same time,
we still was tryin' to survive and really
the only way we knew to get money was to...
you know, get into the, you know, the drug trade.
Go find me a rapper
who didn't start his career on crack cocaine profits.
There was not a lot of people who saw
the path of staying away from that shit.
'Cause you taste it, you're hooked.
You try it, you're hooked.
If you sell it, you're hooked.
Frequent use has almost doubled in the last few years,
and that's why habitual cocaine users,
especially crack users,
are the most pressing immediate drug problem.
All of a sudden, you had this influx of this new drug
that's making all kinds of money and creating addicts.
You know, I remember doing music, and we were doing clubs,
and cats was hyper in the club till like 6:00 in the morning.
We thinkin' it's just the music.
Nah, cats was...
back there, like, zoned out, not even blinkin'.
Dope game just blew out of proportion in L.A.
and cross-country.
To win in the war against addictive drugs like crack
will take more than just a federal strategy.
It will take a national strategy.
It is a rock house and a smoke house.
That is they buy rock here and smoke it here.
I can't say enough for the, uh... for the police
and the SWAT team,
They're just doing a fantastic job.
When you have a million-dollar business,
and it's street money illegal,
you gotta protect it.
We went from just guys havin'
six shooters and shotguns and shit like that
to fuckin' M16s and all this shit.
Man, it's like you got a fuckin' gun
that's gonna shoot... pop pop pop pop pop pop...
and not stop for a long fuckin' time?
This influx of drugs, guns, addiction,
Reagan and Bush disenfranchisement.
When Reaganomics kicked in,
it took away all the after-school programs.
So what else is there for you to do
but hang out in the streets?
You got your friend comin' over to you,
talkin' 'bout, "I got $500 for doing this."
And you're like, "For real? Dang!
How can I get me some?"
It all started to turn into a cocktail.
You know, more murders went up,
it separated territorial groupings
and made them hardcore gun gangs and drug gangs.
9-3 and 3-0-8.
13-03's behind the unit.
13-43. Stopping the vehicle, Central and 40th Place.
We got involved with all of the wrong shit.
Gang-bangin', sellin' drugs, shootin', gettin' shot at,
watchin' the homies go to jail.
I mean, all of the above.
I was like, "Look, man, we can't keep doin' this.
You know, you goin' to jail, me goin' to jail.
We got to let all this stuff go, man,
and just be some squares."
My theory was if we did that, we would get blessed.
I don't know what made me call my brother Dre.
I just called him, like, "Man, what's up?" you know.
Just to say hi.
And he was just like,
"Shit, come up to this bachelor party we havin'."
So I was like, "All right."
♪ California knows how to party ♪
♪ California knows How to party ♪
♪ In the city of L.A. ♪
♪ In the city Of good ol' Watts ♪
I was getting married. Dr. Dre was my best man.
We had a few guys come over to the party.
My last night of freedom,
Warren G being one of them,
and, uh, the DJ ran out of music,
so Warren presented me with his demo tape at the time,
and we popped it in, played it,
heads went to bobbin'.
Of course, Dre wanted to know, "Who was that?"
and I told him, "That's 213."
And I was like, "Snoop, I seen Dre
and I played some of our music,
and he liked it, man."
Snoop was like, "Fuck that shit,"
boom, hang the phone up.
Warren G was always pushin' to get Dre to hear me.
Whenever Dre would come by for a family function or a holiday,
Warren G was like "Snoopy, rap.
Snoopy can rap." He's like, "Oh, okay."
And I'm like, "Okay, he ain't payin' no attention."
Snoop was exactly what Dre needed at that time.
Eazy had gone this way,
Cube had gone that way,
Dre needed a rapper.
So I called him again. I said, "Snoop, please, look,
Dre want us to come to studio on Monday."
And it just was like, "You know what?
We gonna go see Dre, see what he talkin' 'bout."
And we went to go see him, we never came back.
One thing about music, it always has a forefather,
and it always has a generation that takes it to the next level.
G-Funk, to me, is the extension of P-Funk.
P-Funk was created by George Clinton of the Parliament.
P-Funk is the combination of all the eras of funk
that we've done.
Parliament started in the fifties as a doo-wop group,
came through Motown,
then we started doing the psychedelic
Jimi Hendrix thing with Funkadelic,
and then we got horns and all that mixed together
and we called it P-Funk.
On the West Coast, it was religion.
We were raised on Parliament-Funkadelic.
Funk was all I had to grow up on.
Parliament came on, I could boogie, baby.
That was like the most gang-bangin' shit ever.
♪ Boy was it neat yeah ♪
♪ Not just knee deep She was totally deep ♪
♪ When she did The freak with me ♪
Well, my musical background was
basically given to me hands-on by my mama first.
My mama loved great music.
She had a bar where she had eight-track cassette players.
Always had parties in the living room.
Man, my mama partied Monday through Monday.
♪ Hush now child ♪
And that's how it was back then.
You know, her friends would come over,
there would be partyin', drinkin',
music in the living room,
and all the kids would be in the back room.
And then, me, I would come out.
And I'd come out there and dance and bump with a big fat girl,
you know, do my thing and whatnot.
♪ You may find From time to time ♪
The entertainer side of me was being groomed
without me even knowing it.
My family members and my mom
would be the ones who would encourage me to be,
like, the life of the party at the age I was at.
Party, dance,
and, occasionally, sip some Schlitz Malt Liquor bull.
You hear me?
My mama was like, "Snoopy how you feel?"
I said, "How the hell you think I feel?"
And then she's like,
"You ain't never havin' another drink again a day in your life.
You ain't gonna talk to me like that."
♪ Just move on up ♪
That's how I got my first dose of real good music,
you know, the R&B, the Betty Whites,
the Isley Brothers, the Gap Bands,
the Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gayes,
all of the above came from Mama.
♪ So hush my child ♪
I'm a very soulful person.
I like to do music to make people to feel good.
And that came from, you know, being around my father.
I'd come over, stay with him, uh...
He had his little plants,
and, you know, he would water his plants, and...
you know, he would go in you know, to his room, and...
I would smell the smell.
I didn't know what it was... back then.
I would just lay down by the records,
you know, with my headphones on that he got me,
and just listen to music all day.
Everything's supposed to have a period, time period
and supposed to get out of there.
People didn't have enough of funk
when our time was over.
There was always the area funk
that was laying around,
that was always in the crates of that uncle
who might've just collected 45s.
So when we go make our own music,
we're just kind of doing an interpretation of what we grew up on.
You got these influences.
The G-Funk was really like
bringing Parliament and bringing that sound
to hip-hop.
♪ Very fine ♪
The "G" in G-Funk stands for Gangster.
Above The Law was the group
who made me a part of what was goin' on,
which was the Gangster Funk.
Gangster Funk.
That's our shit, we some gangsters,
we make funky music, we talk gangster shit,
music sound good, makes you feel good.
Sounded like gang-affiliated street,
hip-hop music coming from the underbelly of society
despite the melody.
It was poppy, but under it, you could hear the grit.
Well, the East Coast perspective of G-Funk,
you know, is the East Coast perspective, back then, of funk.
Funk didn't get played in New York.
'Cause New York's on this rhythm,
there was only certain records that New York wanted to hear.
We were disconnected from our black music.
We had disco music, so we missed funk.
People always try to differentiate,
like, West Coast rap from East Coast rap.
I always would say it has to do with the lifestyles.
New York, you have a static lifestyle.
You're on the train, everything is in front of you.
When you're listening to something smooth, G-Funk,
it doesn't really match walking through Times Square.
The beats that were coming out of the East
were, like, 90, 95, 100 beats per minute.
But in L.A., you in your low low, you rollin',
you need somethin' to ride to.
Go funky,
and funky meant droppin' it down
to 80 beats per minute,
get some instrumentation in there, and ride it out.
It was sine waves, it was, you know, oscillators
and bass guitars and guitars at the same time with keys.
You know, all mixed up in melody.
And nobody was doin' that,
and that's what was changing the game.
Yeah, but they brought up all that punk,
'cause I didn't see if it was Chronic.
If it was Chronic, it would have been no problem.
They brought up some Backyard Boogie...
Summer of '92, you know,
there was about 20 guys staying at my house at the time.
You know, Snoop, Warren, all the guys,
just, um, that were on The Chronic,
they were involved in that album.
Turn the music up, cuz.
Come here, Warren G.
Movin' in with Dre, he was just being a big brother to us
and giving us a place to stay, because...
he knew that...
a lot of the situations that was going on
where we was from, it wasn't cool.
You know what I'm sayin'?
So he took us out of the urban community,
away from the drive-by's and stuff
to create some dope records
that we were doin' for The Chronic.
Snoop, D.O.C., RBX, Daz, Kurupt,
they were all the guys that would write.
Rage, Nate, and Jewell,
they're role was to create melodies.
I was the guy that'd go out
and go buy records and find ideas and stuff like that.
And then if he liked it, I was like,
"Take it. I mean, we're family."
It wasn't, like, on no business shit like,
"I did this or that." No.
You my big brother,
and I'm with you. I'm ride or die with you.
So whatever I do, you can take that shit.
I would come in and show him a few things every now and then.
But he basically picked it up on his own.
He actually taught me how,
you know, to start samplin'.
You know, so I started gettin' the records,
I started samplin' different sounds
and makin' my own shit.
"Little Ghetto Boy," he brought that... that sample.
Wassup. Rhythm Rock live.
We're in the studio meeting the killaz.
We got Warren G right here.
You better work on yourself, man.
Here's a song called "Back in the Day."
♪ Little ghetto boy ♪
One of the ones that he really liked
was the "Let Me Ride" sample.
And he took it and re-did it.
Dre just went back to, you know, Leon Hayward, 1974,
"I Want To Do Something Freaky To You."
Big, you know, black hit. He's old enough to know that.
New kids not old enough to know it exists.
Figure that out, figure out how to run the studio,
find somebody with a rap style over it, boom.
You got an old cat diggin' it on their memory,
you got a young cat diggin' it on the rhythm that's already in their blood.
Crank the beat up for me.
♪ Motherfuckin' Dr. Dre Is on the piano ♪
♪ Doggie Dogg Is on the vocals ♪
♪ And I swing like soprano ♪
♪ An old tin can-o ♪
♪ Oh my God like oh man-o ♪
♪ It's Snoop Doggie Dogg He's on the mic ♪
♪ You understand as well ♪
Once Snoop came in,
and we decided that this is the person
that we're going to work with,
this is the road we gonna take,
I took it upon myself to
put the kind of energy into him
it would take for him to be great.
♪ Yeah, this is a story Of a famous dog ♪
♪ Rhythmic dogs ♪
♪ Harmonic dogs ♪
♪ House dogs street dogs ♪
D.O.C., that's when he became my sensei
and my... my writing guru.
Dr. Dre and D.O.C. had a bond with Snoop.
It's called artist development,
'cause Dr. Dre had the beats, D.O.C. with the lyrics.
We would go to his house to write the songs
and get the music and create the ideas.
We took the beat home from Dre's place.
We'd walk up the street to the store
and get us some Miller Genuine Drafts.
And we'd sit down, we'd listened to the thing,
and I said, "Okay, now you take the beat.
You go upstairs, I'm gonna stay down, and we're gonna write.
He would go upstairs, take about an hour, we meet up,
he goes down what he wrote.
"That part is really cool, Doggy,
the way you started it off was kinda iffy.
So let's erase these four,
let's move these eight up.
Let's make four new ones.
Now we got sixteen."
Now you understand what it takes to make a verse complete,
from beginning to end, no flaws,
everybody can ride. There are no mistakes.
♪ Atomic dog ♪
♪ Bow wow wow Yippie-yo yippie-yay ♪
♪ Bow wow yippie-yo ♪
Dr. Dre is a bad motherfucker in the studio,
meaning that you could be doin' this shit that sound like this,
and when he finished with it, that mothafucka gonna sound like that.
Even with me, when I came to Dr. Dre, I was good,
but he made me great.
Like, that's what he has the ability to
make you great, to shine you up, to polish you up.
Like I said earlier, I deserve a lifetime achievement award.
You know, everybody knew a little somethin',
but Dr. Dre enhanced it, developed it,
and helped it to evolved to a higher level.
Yeah, man, The Chronic is like, you know,
it's the bomb thing on the street right now, you know?
And I figure, you know, my album is the bomb, so I had to call it that.
Rap has always been like the NFL, man.
Some cats are Pro-Bowlers, other ones are just good,
But The Chronic was like, you know, shoot,
that was Hall of Fame type stuff, man.
I had the same feeling about that album back then as I do now.
Wow! Dang!
Of that era, that was the best album.
It had everything you could want in a record.
Political, socialism, fun, enjoyment.
And it was revolutionary because it was transcending,
and it was gonna change the world
to have different people
who never would listen to hip-hop listening to hip-hop.
When we get somebody like Dre
and you have access to all that good talent,
it was just a masterpiece.
When The Chronic was released, that was your introduction.
'Cause we already knew Dre from Wreckin' Cru,
we knew Dre from NWA,
but now you got Dr. Dre as a producer again,
but he's introducing you to cats that you've never heard of.
Now you can look and you can say, "Oh, Snoop Dogg,
Lady of Rage, Daz, Kurupt,"
those are names that you've been knowing for years.
These dudes was masters of their craft.
It was like a dern dream team right here on one album.
The songs never really ended before the next one started.
It was... they fused together,
and it just... It was an experience.
You weren't allowed to skip to the next song.
You just listened to the album and let it play.
I think what made The Chronic different
than anything that came before it,
was that you heard voices
matched with great production concept.
It was a story. It told a story of an era
in Los Angeles, California, around the riots.
If NWA scared you, for whatever reason,
Snoop, Dre and everybody was pretty much saying some ill shit, too.
They just presented it different.
I don't believe that white America could take NWA
as much as they could take The Chronic.
NWA opened their eyes,
but The Chronic opened their ears.
They didn't understand what NWA was goin' through
when they was sayin', "Fuck the police, they doin' this to us.
This is then dah dah."
But when The Chronic came out,
Rodney King got his ass beat.
"Oh, that's what you niggas was talking about."
It's funny. It seemed like a time
black folks as a culture were progressing.
The Cosby era.
But when I got to California,
the police was doin' those dudes real bad.
The 362 page report was unsealed this morning,
presenting what one high-ranking official said
was an ugly picture of his own department.
What the report clearly says to us
as the leaders of the Los Angeles Police Department
is mediocrity is alive and well.
L.A.P.D. is a totally different type
of police force than any other.
And when they come out of those cars, they're on a mission.
They're never coming out that car
to talk to you, to be nice.
I got a bunch of stories. They always used to whoop on us.
You could be, um, in your white shorts,
and that motherfucker be like, "Lay on the ground."
Then they'd pat you down, let you go,
your clean white pants are now brown and black.
Guy rolls off like it never happened.
I got arrested, uh, for some warrants,
and on the way to the station,
I got a beatdown. I mean, straight up beat.
Boom!
If they're acquitted, there'll be an outcry,
a lasting fear and mistrust of the law in L.A.
I don't think Rodney King's beating was a big deal
to anybody who was from anywhere in the streets.
That was just another nigga
got his ass whooped, except on camera.
I have no complaints about my police officers.
I watched them, I was there on the streets for 36 hours.
And I watched them time and time and time again.
Now, there's lots of ways you could deal with this.
You could be mad at the police.
Call them out, talk shit about it.
But at the end of the day all we was saying is,
"We just want a fair shot."
What we saw last night
and the night before in Los Angeles,
is not about civil rights.
It's not about the great cause of equality
that all Americans must uphold.
It's not a message of protest.
It's been the brutality of a mob, pure and simple.
That affected my lyrics on Dr. Dre's album, The Chronic.
Naturally the music is going to depict what we're livin' like.
The lifestyle of the music is the lifestyle of the person.
Eased rap, stories that are relative.
Yeah, there's gonna be some anger in some of it,
'cause the anger never dissipates
until it has clarity of education.
It's commentary. We were speaking, not just to us,
we were speaking to the world.
What do you think the reason people were so into the album?
Why do you think?
'Cause, you know, it's just some funky shit, you know.
There's nothing out right now that can compare to that album.
You know, I spent a whole year working on it.
This is the longest I ever spent workin' on a project.
And, um... it definitely deserves...
deserves everything it's gettin' right now.
You know, 'cause its a good album.
You know, people want to hear some good shit.
Dr. Dre took a chance on all of us,
and it paid off in many ways,
not just financially,
just being a part of hip-hop history
by puttin' entities in the game that helped change the game.
Never play your life like...
This is a song I composed.
When I first made it, I took it home,
and I played it for my mama.
And I'd like to play it, and here it go.
And, uh, when I played it...
She looked at me and said, "Boy, I know you're not gonna sing another song."
- Yeah. - Chronic, baby!
Check it out!
♪ My Chronic on Your motherfuckin' ass ♪
♪ With my naked dance ♪
Yo, just sing just like that...
When I went to the earlier sessions before the Suge influence,
they were havin', like, a party, man.
They were... they were like a family.
And we sittin' here with Dr. Dre right here.
Gin and juice.
Nobody was thinkin' about money,
which is why the music came out great.
Dre, he's not greedy at all.
He's probably the most nonchalant with money
and with the business part of it,
because he's not sittin' here going, "What can I get?"
He's like, "What can I create?"
♪ Dee dah dah ♪
Suge took over. It was a different vibe there.
It was a little more intense.
And Suge was the CEO. He ran the whole ball game.
You know what I'm saying? He ran Death Row.
Dr. Dre just gave us the lane to do what we loved to do.
We loved to make music and work and all that.
And Suge made sure we had that lane
and made sure that lane was clean.
Suge didn't do shit musically.
Suge wouldn't know a hit record
if you took a Parliament Funkadelic album
and slapped him in the face with it.
But he helped facilitate the deals
that put us in a place to be able to do shit.
And then once we started doing shit
then he started going and making back door deals by himself.
He started to bring in people that he termed as "security."
Suge had all these, like, gang-banger kinda cats
all over the place,
and then you'd come in the door and like, "You got a gun on you?"
and if you did, they were like,
"Can you just check it right here at the front desk?"
so they'd open up the drawer,
and there'd be like 20 guns in the fuckin' drawer.
You're like, "Man, where the fuck am I at?"
At that time, we was right in the middle of doin' a lot of good music,
and we was creatin' some dope records.
Things was movin' in the right direction,
so there was a tour for The Chronic.
I was charged up, 'cause I'm like,
"Shit, I'm gettin' ready to go on tour."
And, uh... packed up clothes, everything, and, uh...
got up to the airport,
and everybody had a ticket but me.
My best friend, my brother, everybody out havin' fun,
and I'm sittin' up here just tore up.
Warren G was a part of The Chronic album, too.
Don't get it fucked up. He brought a lot music
and, you know, ideas and, you know, shit to the table,
skits and this and that.
It made me feel like, you know,
"Motherfuckers don't even give a fuck."
You know what I'm sayin'?
It's like, "Damn, I thought I was...
really tight, you know, with... in the... in the family."
And it was fucked up, man, it was real fucked up,
'cause it was like
you could just see
the frustration in his face.
And it was like it was hard for him to deal with it.
It was real hard to deal with it.
It was a very, very devastating situation.
Just me not being able to go
and be a part of the people who I was down with,
you know, with 110%.
Warren G was never signed to Death Row records.
And they did it so scandalous to where
they didn't present him a contract.
Nate didn't sign, either,
but he was so tight,
Dr. Dre couldn't do a record without Nate.
In my hand, it says "all access."
I got it goin' on here.
Suge was fuckin' with Warren.
He was treatin' Warren funny.
It was real fucked up because...
I'm not sayin' that Dre knew,
but I felt like he could've made it happen.
We're here live in the house.
And then one day they called me up to another floor,
and the contract was there.
And I'm askin', "Where's Warren G?
and, you know, the rest... Nate Dogg?"
"Oh, they gonna come do theirs later."
I went to Dre, and I talked to him.
You know, and he was just like,
"You know, you gotta be your own man.
I don't want you to go through no bullshit,
so just go out and create your own shit,
you know, on your own."
But, me,
uh, being such a fan of him,
it hurt.
I think Warren G is one of the unsung heroes
when it comes to that whole crew.
Without Snoop, there is no Chronic.
Without Warren, there is no Snoop.
That early explosion, had a lot to do with Warren G.
He was there and Dre is not the kinda guy
who gives everybody detailed credits.
We was just kickin' it around.
I put some samples together.
Snoop and D.O.C. came over and put some lyrics to it,
and, uh, just put it together like that,
and it was the bomb.
Nobody gets to make a record that Dre doesn't control.
He's not gonna barter his brand,
and so if Dre doesn't see you as valuable behind a microphone,
then your work is dead in the water, period.
That was supposed to be the thing that made us all win.
When it cracked,
it's just the thing that made Suge and Dre win.
Warren G, he didn't get anything.
Death Row pushed him out when it started to explode.
After that, that kind of, like, made me feel like
I gotta go do my own thing,
so I went back to the hood,
you know, slept on my sister's floor
and just started tryin' to build myself
back into who I knew I was.
So, now, tell me a little bit about Death Row Records here.
Death Row Records. Death Row Records gonna be the next Motown.
- You know what I'm sayin'? - Mm-hmm.
We buildin' up somethin'.
You know, the Chronic album was the foundation,
Snoop's album is gonna be
another brick in the house that Death Row built.
♪ And I don't need No type of support ♪
♪ I stand on my own two feet ♪
♪ I defeat any MC Who tries to step to me ♪
♪ Blow 'em like ashes ♪
♪ Mashes with the DPGs Niggas freeze at ease ♪
♪ Please I'm the S Oh yes I guess I'm blessed ♪
♪ When I take the microphone I don't be smokin' ♪
I would've never signed it
if I'd have known he didn't have a deal.
You know, it was thrown in my face
like everybody was signed.
And then once I found out he wasn't,
what was I supposed to do, go tell them,
"Hey, take my name of the paper"?
I had to continue to do what I was doin',
and this is what you wanted.
You've been wantin' me to do this shit
for the longest. I'm here now.
But at the same time, I can't do it with you,
but I involved him in everything that we did.
I was around Snoop sessions around '93,
just bein' there to try to be creative
and try to help my homeboy be successful.
Just seein' and watchin' how far he went from being here
to growin' up into a full fledged artist.
♪ From the depths of the sea Back to the block ♪
♪ Snoop Doggy Dogg Funky as the the The D.O.C. ♪
♪ Went solo on that ass But it's still the same ♪
♪ Long Beach is the spot Where I served my cane ♪
Doggystyle was the most anticipated rap album
of all time when it came out.
It was like you just couldn't get enough Snoop.
- ♪ Snoop Doggy Dogg ♪ - ♪ Yeah yeah yeah ♪
♪ Snoop Doggy Dogg ♪
Everybody had heard Snoop on The Chronic
and was waitin' on his own record.
The stage was set.
That was a record that introduced the world,
not just to Dogg, because we got The Chronic,
But I'm talking about introduced the world to
what Long Beach was, what this look was,
what "cuz" meant.
Then when you think about the "What's My Name" video,
to be in Long Beach
and shoot that video on top of, you know, the V.I.P.
It wasn't a pretty video
where it had to be pretty ladies,
and it had to be the most beautiful car.
It was like, "Nah, I'm in the hood,
this is where I come from, this is where they love me and
this is where they accept me."
♪ Doggy Dogg Doggy Dogg ♪
When he hit, he hit. He hit it out the park.
He hit it out the park, believe me.
♪ Snoop Doggy Dogg in the house With the fans like every day ♪
♪ And I'm right back up in here With Dr. Dre ♪
♪ And like I said none Of y'all can get with this ♪
♪ And none of y'all Can get with that ♪
- Hey, Snoop, how you doin'? - Excited.
You are?
Nancy Fletcher.
- Jewell. - Warren G.
- How you doin', Snoop? - I'm chillin'.
So what's the message that you're trying to send out
on your new debut LP?
Just somethin' to groove to. Get your mind off your problems.
Stop the violence. Somethin' to groove to.
So I understand Dr. Dre is a major influence on you?
It's all a family thing.
You know what I'm sayin'? It's a Death Row coalition.
It's like his music with my words.
It's like it's a family thing. Somethin' to groove to.
Give it up for Snoop Doggy Dogg.
The day that it was released,
me and Snoop just rolled around L.A.
and saw the lines in all the record stores, you know.
And I remember that because he was so blown away by it.
He had to have known on some level,
but I think Snoop is just a really humble guy.
Everywhere I went, all you could hear
was something coming out somebody's window,
and it was Dogg or the conversations of,
"Man, have you heard this one? What's your favorite?"
Let's just hold Snoop Dogg up on a pedestal.
He's a worldwide household name.
Icon. Iconic. Snoop Dogg.
That is the G-Funk in a lightning bolt.
Like, that's it.
Snoop was dope.
I just wanted to hear more and more music from him.
Such a cool person, you know.
White girls turned Snoop Dogg into a sex symbol,
you know what I'm saying?
Like, girls from our end, they can say,
"Oh I love the hair, I love this,"
but then MTV girls was like, "Oh, my God, do you see this?"
"Doggystyle" jumped straight pop.
Like, I was number one pop album.
I'm tryin' figure out how the fuck am I pop
when I don't make music that popped?
There was always this perception, like, you make a pop song
or a song that has pop possibilities even,
that's not hip-hop.
But from a person who's cultural and loves hip-hop,
that is very hip-hop.
Pop means that you're popular.
As real as I was, as hard as I was,
as gangster as I was,
white America accepted it faster than black America.
White motherfuckers smoke weed just like niggas,
probably more 'cause they don't get in trouble for it.
You know? Shit.
They probably on they bongs and shit
and havin' a good time.
They can relate to the Dogg.
So I became popular with being the lead voice
from the Chronic album that stepped into his own,
produced by Dr. Dre, with a new spirit,
new feeling, and a whole new swag.
Nobody had a swag like mine that was hard
but in-pocket and mellow.
Snoop had an original flow,
an original cadence, an original look.
Never seen somebody where they were
gettin' their hair braided on the porch in their video.
You know what I'm sayin', you'd never seen someone
doing a black Home Alone.
Aah!
His vocals was funk.
His vocals was some vocals
that people ain't never heard like that.
You know, Ice Cube was coming East Coast.
"I'm coming at you" style.
Snoop was "I'm in the pocket" funk,
way in the back,
I'm a straight-up, no-ice liquor,
and Snoop was one of them Long Island Iced Teas.
You know, it's smooth, it goes down nice,
it flows, but it has the same effect.
He was laid-back. He didn't really care about you.
But he'd shoot you.
That's why when I came, I was the one and only.
And the number-one male artist of the year is...
Snoop Doggy Dogg!
You are responsible for the producing of this album.
Now what goes into being the producer
of a hit album like this?
A lot of hard work, you know, kickin' it in the studio.
A lot of people like these people in the studio.
You know what I'm sayin'?
Everybody drops their two cents in the bucket.
You know, I can't do it by myself,
and we come up with a masterpiece.
Dr. Dre, give it up.
You know, things went the way they went.
I still wasn't gonna give up
on bein' a part of what was goin' on.
You know, they was... They my family.
One day, I was up at the studio with...
You know, with... with everybody, with Dre,
Snoop, and just everybody, our whole crew.
And, uh, John Singleton and Paul Stewart was up there,
you know, lookin' for songs for their soundtrack.
I had recently got hired by John Singleton
as the music supervisor for his second film,
Poetic Justice, and we talked about,
you know, trying to get a Snoop record for our soundtrack.
So while I was hangin' out the studio,
tryin' to get this Snoop song, I met Warren.
♪ I can see the lens I mean it's Minolta ♪
♪ It's me Warren G breakin' Shit like ♪
And, uh, Warren came up to me,
and I'll never forget, he said...
"Man, can I play, you know, this cassette for you?"
And I was like, "Okay," and we went out
to my Ford Explorer truck.
I pop in a cassette, and I played it,
and it was a song called "Indo Smoke."
It was me and Mista Grimm.
♪ Smokin' on the bud Feelin' kinda high ♪
♪ Sippin' on the gin Feelin' kinda fly ♪
♪ A Warren G production Sits in the tape deck ♪
♪ As Mista Grimm raps ♪
Yes, we're signing this. This is done.
I already knew I loved it. I didn't have to hear any more.
I was sold.
And I was like, "What?"
Said, "You gotta be kiddin' me."
I mean, the 213 stuff was demos.
They never came out or anything.
So this was the first records that ever came out by him.
♪ Whoo hey Now you know ♪
♪ Inhale exhale with my flow ♪
♪ Breakaway Come again like this ♪
♪ The LB to the C Two times don't miss ♪
♪ 'Cause if you do you break You get broke ♪
♪ Me and Mista G And the Indo Smoke ♪
"Indo Smoke" opened up the flood gates
for a lot of the record companies
to start reaching out to me.
'Cause "Indo Smoke" was on the radio being promoted.
People was just like, "Who is this guy?
Who's the other guy?"
They wanted to know who we were.
It's about is there a melody?
Is it soft? Is it accessible?
"Indo Smoke" was made to be on the radio,
to go through the roof.
That was street even though it had melody.
♪ Down with the king ♪
♪ Down with the king for years About ten of 'em ♪
I wanted to be on Def Jam Records as a kid.
Def Jam was the home of all of my favorites
The opportunity to be on a label
with all these different groups that I look up to and that...
and never think I was gonna be able to be around them.
♪ Or rather form a circle Around a loud ♪
♪ 'Cause brothers Or others... ♪
But I didn't know that the company was in debt.
Def Jam was dying.
Def Jam wasn't making no fuckin' hits.
They was dead. We was wearin' their asses out.
Death Row, we was the number-one label, period.
You understand me?
Gangster rap and in this music industry,
but Def Jam is historic for hip-hop.
You know, they'd had that huge run with the Beastie Boys
and Public Enemy and all that stuff,
and they had kind of lost their way, so to speak.
Here's a company that's 20 million in the hole,
and we had just reset the company.
Polygram was in.
And the first thing that came out was Warren G.
They needed something to take them into the next realm.
And by that time, you know, funk had gotten around.
G-Funk had been around, and the East Coast record label
had to figure out how they could kinda get in on this.
The signing of Warren G to Def Jam at that point
was a lifesaver for the label.
- Is this filming? - Yeah.
Hey, this is Warren G, you know what I'm sayin'?
This is live coverage, you know what I'm sayin'?
My documentary. I'm up here at the studio.
You know what I'm sayin', handlin' business.
Regulators.
We regulate any stealin' of his property.
We're damn good, too.
But you can't be any geek off the street.
Gotta be handy with the steel, if you know what I mean,
earn your keep.
Regulators! Mount up.
"Regulate" was a song I did for my album.
What I told Nate to do was sing...
you know, "Let's tell a story,"
you know, "just follow my lead."
So I set it off by saying, you know,
"It was a clear black night, a clear white moon,
Warren G was on the streets."
♪ Tryin' to consume Some skirts for the eve ♪
♪ So I can get some funk Rollin' in my ride ♪
- ♪ Chillin' all alone ♪ Nate came in,
and he followed what I said.
He was like, "Just hit the east side of the LBC."
♪ On a mission tryin' To find Mr. Warren G ♪
♪ Seen a car full of girls Ain't no need to tweak ♪
♪ All you skirts know What's up with 213 ♪
It's a duet, you know what I mean?
It's like a great answer back-and-forth kind of record.
Here's the way it's sang, really melodic and no problems,
but it had a threatening tone to it.
That's what made it cool, right?
We would feed off of each other.
We didn't even think that it was gonna be
as big as it is today.
First time I heard "Regulate,"
like, "Dang, who's this?
This... You know what? It's smooth."
I felt inspired when I heard it.
You know, I felt something, like, "Oh, shit, hit."
And then, of course, he had Nate Dogg ridin' shotgun.
It was un-fuck-with-able.
That was like a dream team right there.
That was like playing two on two with anybody you want.
Y'all, come on, let's go two on two, all right?
I got Nate Dogg.
♪ I'm tweakin' Into a whole new era ♪
♪ G-Funk step to this I dare ya ♪
♪ Funk on a whole new level ♪
♪ The rhythm is the bass And the bass is the treble ♪
"Regulate" was just such a smash.
It was just such a huge hit.
And it got full, 100% West Coast respect.
That's classic hip-hop.
That record goes down in history.
And most people can say that record word for word.
♪ Chords strings ♪
♪ We brings melody ♪
♪ G-Funk ♪
♪ Where rhythm is life And life is rhythm ♪
There was no love lost between Death Row and Def Jam.
Def Jam had Warren signed, but Death Row had Nate.
You know what I mean?
And one can't can't do one without the other.
Suge had a problem with Nate Dogg
being on Warren G's shit because he felt like Nate Dogg
was a part of Death Row,
but if Suge was a great businessman,
he would've signed Warren G the same day he signed me.
You allowed that to happen.
Warren wasn't goin' for it.
He wasn't scared of Suge.
So he was like, "Man, fuck you,"
then he went and did his own thing.
And, you know, Suge didn't like none of that.
At the end of the day,
everyone had to kind of give in.
The song was featured on the Above the Rim soundtrack,
which is an amazing soundtrack on Death Row Records,
one the best soundtracks ever made, and
was Warren's first single from his album.
It was incredible to come out on Death Row
and be the lead single on a Def Jam record.
Speaks a lot to what a great song it was
and how popular it was at the time, too.
♪ The phone is ringin' And I'm in the Benz ♪
♪ I don't wanna answer ♪
♪ 'Cause I know It's some chickenhead ♪
♪ Sure enough When I picked up my phone ♪
♪ Supid-ass bitch Wanted to come into my home ♪
♪ I'm contemplating now ♪
♪ Do I need to prove ♪
When I dropped my record
right before the summer of '94,
it just took people by storm,
because they had never heard nothin' like it.
I think one thing about Warren's album was
you know, it had all the great G-Funk elements,
but it was even more accessible in some ways
than, like, the Dre/Snoop stuff,
'cause it was more fun party, less gangster.
Warren isn't some big gangster,
and he kept it real to who he is.
There's different levels of gangster rap.
So Warren was more like,
"I'll shoot you if I have to" type motherfucker, you dig?
Where a lot us were
"we're coming to get you" type shit, you dig?
My reaction to hearin' Warren G's debut album in '94
was classic because Warren G wasn't a good rapper
as a kid to us.
We used to always clown,
'cause he used to take all the Dr. Dre raps
before they came out and be using those
and cheatin' and shit, so when I heard him on there
rappin' and doing his shit, his production was next level.
He was basically on the same level as Dr. Dre.
Didn't use none of the shit that I do, you know,
none of my sounds or none of that shit.
He just came out and did his own thing,
came up with his own shit, which is dope.
His album was like a runaway success.
It was very quickly triple platinum.
This is Warren G, you know what I'm sayin'?
Has it gone platinum yet, Johnny?
It's platinum now.
- Almost double. - Double.
It'll be double by the end of next week.
I don't even think Russell and Leore and them understood
what was really goin' on.
I'm an optimist, so I thought we would survive
and we would grow and we would do something innovative,
and, you know, I didn't expect that deal
to go just the way it did.
Warren's music was worldwide because the melody plays
no matter what the language.
He showed the pop potential of hip-hop.
He saved Def Jam with that record.
It was the biggest record that they had
in a long time, that's for sure.
Without Warren G, we would've had
to sell the company, we would've fell apart.
Without him, would we have a Jay-Z or a Foxy Brown?
I don't know. I don't think so.
We certainly wouldn't have had the support
to go out and build those acts.
I thought I was like the biggest thing
in the world when I went to Europe.
I performed for, like, 50,000, 60,000,
Wembley Arena, you know what I'm sayin', I'm popular.
So this time I go, Warren G is already over there.
So I'm like, "I got my homeboy in the house.
I'm gonna bring out a special guest."
I bring this motherfucker Warren G on stage.
What's up, man?
All 100,00 motherfuckers stand up, lights.
I'm like, "This nigga is Elvis over here."
That's right.
All right. All right.
That's right.
I gotta give it up to
I didn't really look at myself as a superstar.
I didn't understand what gold and platinum was.
And I was like, "This is what I get for doin' music?"
Home videos, baby, yeah. G-Funk rocks it every time.
Don't get it twisted, yeah. Be-yotch.
The Lady of Rage, Kurupt,
Daz and Snoop, Nate Dogg and myself,
we loved it, loved it.
Bumped it and loved him for doin' it.
But Suge reacted.
Suge Knight was so fucked up at the time,
well, he wouldn't even allow us to do shit for Warren G
without him tryin' to get paid.
The 1994 Billboard Music Awards will continue.
The 1994 Billboard Awards, they asked us to do "Regulate."
Suge told Nate he couldn't perform with me.
Nobody asked me to call Suge regarding Nate's performance.
That's what I was there for. I would've called.
So I don't think Warren
was afraid of him either at that time.
I had my people there.
We wasn't trying trying to be the aggressors, you know,
but at the same time wasn't nothing gonna happen to Nate,
'cause that's my homeboy.
♪ It was a clear black night A clear white moon ♪
♪ Warren G is on the streets Tryin' to consume ♪
♪ Some skirts for the eve So I could get some funk ♪
♪ Rollin' in my ride, Chillin' all alone ♪
♪ I just hit the east side of the LBC ♪
♪ On a mission Tryin' to find Mr. Warren G ♪
♪ Seen a car full of girls Ain't no need to tweak ♪
♪ All of you skirts know What's up with 213 ♪
♪ So I hooks a left On 2-1 and Lewis ♪
I just think Suge know that he fucked up
when he let Warren G go.
He always wanted to try to get somethin'
off of the fact that he coulda had Warren G.
It wasn't a good reflection that this artist
who was part of his camp and viewed as his camp
by almost everybody left and kind of went
to this East Coast label that he didn't like, Def Jam,
and had all this success.
You know, and we all know
how Suge deals with business and negotiates.
♪ Just throw your hands In the air ♪
♪ And wave 'em like you Just don't care ♪
♪ And if you're down With Nate Dogg and Warren G ♪
♪ Somebody say oh yeah ♪
Oh, yeah!
Hello, Warren.
Hello, Patrick. Just wanna say you guys...
you guys know how to throw a party.
I just wanna say that...
that I'm having a really good time
and that I'd like to play a tune for you.
My nigga Warren, boy, this the party of the year, nigga!
Gonna find Miss Tucker in here.
When I get married, I'm gonna invite you to the weddin'!
During that era, G-Funk sold more records
than any group in any era number-wise.
No matter where we went all over the world,
people embraced G-Funk and what we did.
G-Funk was more than just a sound.
See, G-Funk opened rap up to a bigger audience,
because it would never go out of style or come in style
because it was a melody.
People were so intrigued for whatever reason.
It could have been you really enjoyed the music,
you really enjoyed the lifestyle,
or you also felt this little thing where
you felt like, man, this is-
you know, this is dangerous.
White folks is gonna always be fascinated with niggas.
It's the nature of the beast.
'Cause I love... the beat lives.
I've always listened to it.
You know, white people are gettin' into it.
The reason they fell in love with it is because
it's just dope, you know,
and they wish they could do the shit.
You'd see boxers walk out to it.
You would see football players.
You'd see cats from baseball, that's their walk-out song.
You know, most people in their locker rooms,
you know, trying to get... hype themself up to play.
In Atlanta with the Falcons?
It wasn't nothin' but noise.
The head coach, Jerry Glanville,
he brought in these huge speakers
where it was a concert in the locker room, man.
I wouldn't say it crossed over
because when something's so good
and something's at another level,
it ain't a crossover.
It is what it is.
Like Jordan's so good, Jordan ain't black or white.
Jordan's Jordan, man.
So when you hear that beat drop...
the white dudes, yeah.
The black dudes.
The coaches. The ball boys.
Everybody, you know?
It's the lifestyle of partyin' and smokin',
drinkin', hangin'.
Everybody gotta get on.
It was like a new day.
That basically opened the door for East Coast listeners
to feel cool with playin' West Coast music,
because before that point, niggas on the East
couldn't just play West Coast music like that.
They was looked at as like, "Nigga, what is you doin'
playin' that shit?" until we made it
fashionably cool with the sound that took over America
to where it was like, "Oh, you not playin' it?
You the only nigga on the block that ain't playin' it."
Everybody had their own level of success,
so there wasn't no hatin' goin' on.
We were handlin' business. Business was getting handled.
But at the same time, it was just too much fun
at that age to be makin' that sort of impact
in the music industry.
It was just too much there to not enjoy.
And I was like, "These dudes is turned up, man.
They livin' la vida loca."
I got handcuffs at home waitin' for you!
I got handcuffs waitin' for you on my bed at home!
Death Row had really come out
and really made a mark in the music business.
Takin' rap's shine from New York had never been done.
Death Row, you know, they was the best
at that G-Funk style,
and only people that can even... hint
or sniff in their direction was Bad Boy at the time.
♪ Sicka than your average ♪
♪ Poppa twist cabbage off instinct ♪
Puffy, he had started Bad Boy Records,
you know, out there in New York.
♪ Timbs for my hooligans In Brooklyn ♪
♪ Dead right If the head right ♪
♪ Biggie there e'ry night ♪
♪ Poppa been smooth Since days of Underroos ♪
He had signed Biggie around this time,
and he was starting to blow up with a lot of hits
that used the same samples from the same era
that influenced us.
You know, but Suge, he wasn't down with that.
♪ Just hit the east side Of the LBC ♪
♪ On a mission trying To find Mr. Warren G ♪
♪ Seen a car full of girls Ain't no need to tweak ♪
♪ All of you skirts know What's up with 213 ♪
First of all, I'd like to thank God.
Second of all, I'd like thank my whole, entire
Death Row family on both sides, you know what I'm sayin'?
I'd like to tell Tupac keep his guards up.
We ride with him.
And what else that I'd like to say?
Any artist out there wanna be an artist
and wanna stay a star and don't wanna have to worry
about the executive producer trying to be all in the videos,
all on the records, dancin', come to Death Row!
I think that was the moment... just period, the moment
where everything Suge said was directed directly to Puffy.
And he put that out there, Puff took it in,
and the shit went to where it went to.
It was a bold move also to do it in New York.
Suge had a problem with Puffy.
That was his personal problem.
But the thing is this one particular guy
is a representation of the East Coast.
So the East Coast took offense to it.
That's what made it an East Coast/West Coast war.
The East Coast was behind Puffy
'cause they supported him,
and the West Coast was behind Suge,
and he was behind us.
By him being on our team and being our leader,
we'd naturally have to ride with him.
Divide and conquer is his primary tactic.
In order for me to get the support I need,
let me make sure that I alienate the ones
that aren't going to be with me.
They say it all the time in that culture...
"Either you with me or you against me."
That's gang culture.
They're throwing Bad Boy, Bad Boy and Death Row.
So it's like I'm lookin' at the room,
you could see all them New York niggas,
like, huddlin' up
like, ""Nigga, it's all of us versus them niggas."
Al these weak rappers, Naz, all these suckers,
they battlin' over East and West like this is a game.
This ain't no game.
Media did what they were supposed to do.
They took a story and ran with it.
And turned it into something. Controversy.
And controversy sells.
Every other question they would ask us
was about East/West.
I blame The Source magazine,
and I especially blame Vibe
for creating an environment where people got killed.
They were instigating something
they didn't even understand.
These nonviolent poets who escaped the hood
were surrounded by violent people with no future.
Ain't nothin' between... you with us?
Those who are with us, we got love for you.
Those who are not with us...
you don't even exist.
We didn't know the...
consequences and repercussions
from what the youth would see out of it,
what the streets would see out of it,
and what the music industry would see out of it.
We was just kids.
Shakur was shot four times
after leaving the Mike Tyson boxing match in Las Vegas
in a car driven by Marion "Suge" Knight,
the head of his label, Death Row records.
I should have got involved earlier.
I should I should've put Suge and Puff in a room.
I should've put people together.
On March 9, 1997,
Biggie Smalls was shot and killed in Los Angeles.
Smalls was leaving a music industry party.
The shooting was eerily similar to Tupac's six months earlier.
After Biggie's death, it's too late, right?
You know, I regret it because, you know, I could've maybe...
maybe saved some lives.
I should have did more.
We was just trying to create music
that made people feel good no matter where you was from.
But when everything happened at the Source Awards in '95,
it no longer became about the music.
It became about what side you was on.
And G-Funk was never the same after that.
There's a lot of people in hip-hop
that made records that drifted into oblivion.
I think the key with music is that you're trying to make
something that'll stand the test of time.
When you're doin' original music
and you're bringin' in melodies,
and you're bringin' in the fusion of rap and R&B,
I think that's the legacy of G-Funk.
I do believe that that G-Funk era
was when hip-hop figured it out.
It was like these guys were like,
"Let's fuckin' smoke and drink
and make the best fuckin' music in the world."
You could've locked those people up in a studio for years,
and they would've just kept givin' us timeless music.
The one thing I could truly say about all these cats, man,
they've been consistent.
Warren G has always been the same cool, calm, collected,
intelligent dude who thought before he acted.
Snoop, same way.
What Dogg and Nate and Warren G are to each other
are the type of friends that you want.
They are the reality and vision of what you would call
childhood friends that grew up together
and been friends until the end.
Good dudes.
Even in the midst of all of that shit
that they had to live in, their heart is good, you know?
The rest of us, we changed our thing.
We thought more of ourselves, and it came back to bite us.
Warren G is excellence.
Warren G's an era. You know what I'm sayin'?
Not everybody's an era. Some of y'all are just down.
Bein' down is cool. We need you.
But an era, everybody don't get that.
I know Snoop hears the same thing every day.
Warren hears the same thing every day.
Daz and Kurupt hear the same shit every day.
"Y'all raised me." We raised millions of kids.
We raised them, and the same person
wouldn't even say that to his own daddy.
These cocksuckers is
not rappin' like the fuck we was rappin',
and the shit today is some bullshit.
Straight up. Fuck it.
Nah, I don't mean that.
If you were to delete G-Funk music,
I think that rap today would be totally different.
G-Funk changed hip-hop dramatically.
And artists of today, some don't even realize it.
There's so many branches, limbs, whatever you wanna call it,
they came from what G-Funk was.
There's these beautiful, melodic songs
with these gangsta rappers on 'em
that the artist would never have dreamed to make 'em.
Man, I think everybody playin' now with the funk.
If you listen to those bass lines
of all the songs that come on nowadays,
it's straight G-Funk.
Kendrick Lamar is kinda like the culmination
of all the old souls of the West Coast.
Kendrick, that's a funky mother.
You put that on at a party, everybody's up off their ass.
You got Problem,
YG, he got that funk in him.
Ty Dolla Sign, Wiz Khalifa.
Shit, Wiz Khalifa's from the West Coast now.
He ain't from Pittsburgh no more.
He out here. He got the funk.
For Warren to say that I'm G-Funk is cool as hell.
I would definitely consider Dre and Warren and Snoop
to be big influences of mine,
and not even just on my music, but on my lifestyle.
There's a absolutely 100% influence of G-Funk on my music,
the fact that, you know, I sing
all of my hooks like Nate Dogg,
my producers that I work with, Sledgren, E. Dan and everybody,
they're all heavily Dre-influenced
and just that era of music.
I definitely keep the G-Funk alive.
The young rappers nowadays are saying,
"My mama used to play your music
all the time when I was a baby."
They didn't grow up off Motown and R&B.
They grew up off of us, so that's how the foundation
has spinned around that we are the Marvin Gayes
and Smokey Robinsons.
You have to pay respects to the G-Funk.
They smoothed out music and added certain elements
that are now stamped in the game.
All of my core fan base, anytime they hear me
or anytime you think about me or listen to my music,
those are the core... those are the elements
that you're gonna think about, so it's like that's...
that's how I've been inspired, and it's always
gonna be a part of me, and it's always gonna be
a part of my fans as well.
The whole West Coast era is the foundation
for a big chunk of hip-hop right now.
That different credible factor made G-Funk
the best brand-building thing for hip-hop.
G-Funk completely commercialized gangster rap.
It just pushed it to a whole 'nother level, you know?
The economics of hip-hop
finally kind of settled in.
You know, people knew what they were worth
and knew what they were supposed to get.
To me, that's the money age.
We just realized that this is a multi-million-dollar business,
that you gotta...
you gotta do what the people expect of you.
Whether it's makin' music for movies,
makin' music for video games,
makin' just cultural moves.
You know, because a lot of corporations of today,
they're using hip-hop to sell their products.
You know, I just got finished doing a Sonic commercial.
I just got finished doing a GEICO commercial.
So now it's part of American culture.
And hip-hop became pop.
Hip-hop is the biggest music around the world.
Any country you go to, they love some hip-hop.
Everybody got they're own version of it, too.
So, you know... we now are at a point
where, yeah, it's very commercialized.
♪ Just a small introduction To the G-Funk era ♪
♪ Every day of my life I take A glimpse in the mirror ♪
I think G-Funk set the foundation as far as clarity,
quality, lookin' good, feelin' good,
and havin' a visual piece to support your musical piece
and to stand by what you say.
Artists shouldn't be responsible
to do anything else but that,
because everything should come from the heart.
You know, you shouldn't feel obligated.
Just come from the heart.
G-Funk gave a voice to many people,
not just from California
or from gang-bang neighborhoods,
but people that didn't have a voice
that felt oppressed, that felt like
this was a way of expressing themselves
through music, good music that sometimes made a point
to address, you know, social issues,
but to be mainly party music.
I said London!
We want y'all to sing this motherfucker
with us tonight, y'all.
We're damn good, too.
But you can't be any geek off the street.
Gotta be handy with the steel, if you know what I mean,
earn your keep.
Regulators! Mount up.
♪ It was a clear black night A clear white moon ♪
♪ Warren G was on the streets Tryin' to consume ♪
♪ Some skirts for the eve So I can get some funk ♪
♪ Rollin' in my ride Chillin' all alone ♪
♪ Just hit the east side Of the LBC ♪
♪ On a mission tryin' To find Mr. Warren G ♪
♪ Seen a car full of girls Ain't no need to tweak ♪
♪ All you hoes know what's up It's 213 ♪
♪ So I hooks a left On 2-1 and Lewis ♪
♪ Some brothas shootin' dice So I said let's do this ♪
♪ I jumped out the ride And said what's up ♪
♪ Some brothas pulled some gats So I said I'm stuck ♪
♪ These hoes peepin' me I'ma glide and swerve ♪
♪ Was lookin' so hard They straight hit the curb ♪
♪ Gonna think of better things Than some horny tricks ♪
♪ I seen my homey and Some niggas all in his mix ♪
♪ I'm gettin' jacked I'm breakin' myself ♪
♪ I can't believe they're Takin' Warren's wealth ♪
♪ They took my rings They took my Rolex ♪
♪ I looked at the niggas, Said damn what's next? ♪
♪ Got my homey hemmed up And they all around ♪
♪ Ain't none of them Seein' if they goin' ♪
♪ Straight pound for pound ♪
♪ I gotta come up real quick Before they start to clown ♪
♪ I best pull out my strap And lay them busters down ♪
♪ They got guns to my head I think I'm goin' down ♪
♪ I can't believe this happened In my hometown ♪
♪ If I had wings I would fly Let me contemplate ♪
♪ I glanced in the cut And I see my homey Nate ♪
♪ 16 in the clip And one in the hole ♪
♪ Nate Dogg is about to make Some bodies turn cold ♪
♪ Now they droppin' and yellin' It's a tad bit late ♪
♪ Nate Dogg and Warren G Had to regulate ♪
♪ Just throw your hands In the air ♪
♪ And wave 'em like you... ♪
This documentary's probably so important,
because G-Funk is three dudes,
singer, rapper, producer.
And from that friendship spawned the careers
of a whole bunch of people
and made a whole lot of money for a bunch of people,
and there'll never be three dudes
like these guys ever again in music.
As it should be.
213, baby!
♪ Say oh yeah ♪
♪ I'm tweakin' Into a whole era ♪
♪ G-Funk step to this I dare ya ♪
♪ Funk on a whole new level ♪
♪ The rhythm is the bass And the bass is the treble ♪
♪ Chords strings ♪
♪ We brings ♪
♪ Melody ♪
♪ G-Funk where rhythm is life And life is rhythm ♪
You know like I know. Come on, y'all.
♪ If you know like I know ♪
♪ You don't want to step To this ♪
♪ It's the G-Funk era ♪
♪ Funked out With a gangster twist ♪
♪ And if you smoke Like I smoke ♪
♪ Then you're high Like every day ♪
♪ And if your ass Is a buster ♪
♪ 213 will regulate ♪
Nate Dogg, rest in peace.
♪ Nobody ♪
♪ Does it better ♪
♪ Nobody ♪
♪ Does it better ♪
♪ They can come closer than close ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ Original, they never will be ♪
♪ We bumpin' from coast to coast ♪
♪ Yeah, yeah ♪
♪ We're just tryin' to make you see ♪
♪ Nobody does it better ♪
♪ I was sittin' here trippin' ♪
♪ My mind is blocked ♪
♪ Nate Dogg just bit it so it's time to concoct ♪
♪ No monkey do it better like this two-man crew ♪
♪ They say, "We won ahead of quitters ♪
♪ Now what y'all gonna do?" ♪
♪ Always into something, that's my name ♪
♪ Only out for money, hey, 'cause that's the game ♪
♪ People always ask me why I'm out for scratch ♪
♪ He who has the most is he who won the match ♪
♪ Strike one, me and Nate Dogg is a match ♪
♪ Strike two, make 'em stand still in their tracks ♪
♪ Strike three, you could call us, 213 ♪
♪ It's the L and the B that makes me act like a G ♪
♪ My exhibition started back in '93 ♪
♪ But when nobody listened they were warmin' in me ♪
♪ To all the nonbelievers now I bet you see ♪
♪ Nobody does it better than me ♪
♪ They can come closer than close ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ Original, they never will be ♪
♪ We bump it from coast to coast ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ Just tryin' to make you see ♪
♪ Nobody does it better ♪
♪ They call me teasin' the spark plug ♪
♪ Keepin' it lit ♪
♪ There is no accident for these platinum hits ♪
♪ So when you make it you show love ♪
♪ Bangin' in your club ♪
♪ Hangin' with chill thugs ♪
♪ Givin' 'em G-love ♪
♪ You remember back on the east side ♪
♪ When all of us niggas used to love to ride ♪
♪ We didn't care what we did ♪
♪ Time was nothing to us ♪
♪ We were just kids... ♪
♪ Times are different now but you still get stuck... ♪