Warren G

Long Beach

Warren Griffin III was born on November 10, 1970 in Long Beach and took the name Warren G in 1988. He attended Jordan High School and learned the drum machine from Dr. Dre; press accounts describe Dre as his step-brother, though sources differ. He formed 213 around 1990 with Nate Dogg and Snoop Dogg, naming the trio after the area code, and a tape recorded at VIP Records in Long Beach led Dre to sign Snoop. Their album The Hard Way (2004, Doggystyle/TVT) reached number 4.

His solo debut, Regulate... G Funk Era (June 7, 1994, Violator/Def Jam), was recorded in 1993 and 1994 at studios in North Hollywood, Burbank, Van Nuys and Long Beach. It debuted at number 2 on the Billboard 200 with 176,000 copies in the first week and went three-times platinum; NME gave it 8 of 10, and the New York Times' Neil Strauss called it the first gangster rap album with crossover appeal. Grammy.com later credited it with helping save Def Jam from serious debt. Take a Look Over Your Shoulder (1997), I Want It All (1999), The Return of the Regulator (2001), In the Mid-Nite Hour (2005) and The G Files (2009) followed, with the EP Regulate... G Funk Era, Part II in 2015. A 2007 special edition and a 2014 twentieth-anniversary edition added remixes by Photek, Jauz and others.

Vice reported in 2018 that Suge Knight blocked Death Row artists from working with him, which kept Snoop Dogg and Nate Dogg almost off the album, with "Regulate" the exception.