Warren G

Warren Griffin III born November 10 1970 is an American rapper record producer and DJ who helped popularize West Coast hip hop during the 1990s A pioneer of Gfunk he attained mainstream success with his 1994 single Regulate featuring Nate Dogg He is credited with discovering Snoop Dogg having introduced the thenunknown rapper to record producer Dr Dre His debut studio album Regulate G Funk Era 1994 debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200 selling 176000 in its first week The album has since received triple platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America RIAA signifying sales of three million copies Regulate spent 18 weeks within the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 with three weeks at number two while its followup This DJ peaked at number nine At the 37th Annual Grammy Awards both songs received nominations for Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Solo Performance respectively Three songs from his second album Take a Look Over Your Shoulder 1997 peaked within the top 40 as did his 1998 duet with Nate Dogg Nobody Does It Better Both the album and its followup I Want It All 1999 received gold certifications by the RIAA His fourth album The Return of the Regulator 2001 failed to yield his earlier commercial heights Along with longtime collaborators Snoop Dogg and Nate Dogg he formed the hiphop trio 213 named for Long Beachs area code they released the album The Hard Way 2004 to mild success His next two albums 2005s In the MidNite Hour and then 2009s The G Files were released independently and selfproduced In 2015 he released Regulate G Funk Era Part II an extended play featuring archived recordings of Nate Dogg who died in 2011 In 2017 Regulate certified platinum in 1994 went multiplatinum propelled by digital downloads Warren Griffin III was born on November 10 1970 and grew up in Long Beach California He had three sisters and was the only son of Warren Griffin Jr an airplane mechanic and Ola a dietician They divorced when Warren was 4 and he lived with his mother and three sisters in East Long Beach until he was just about to start middle school In 1982 Warren went to live with his father in North Long Beach His new wife Verna had three children from a prior marriage one of whom was Andre Young the soontobecome Dr Dre who in 1984 joined a leading DJ crew the World Class Wreckin Cru which by 1985 doubled as an electro rap group which in 1987 put out the Los Angeles areas first rap recording under a major label By then a Jordan High School student Warren was playing football and running with friends In 1988 age 17 Warren was jailed for gun possession While incarcerated he took the nickname Warren G By this time Dr Dre was already beginning to experience success as the writer and record producer for Ruthless Records as well as being a member of NWA with Ruthless Records founder EazyE and Ice Cube NWAs landmark album Straight Outta Compton was driving the Los Angeles areas rap scene to swiftly drop electro for gangsta Once out of jail Warren worked at the Long Beach shipyardsand began focusing on music after Dr Dre taught him how to use a drum machine