Warren G

Related Content

• Top 10 must-see Minnesota music videos this week
  May 30, 2013
• Mike Mictlan, Toki Wright, and B. Dolan form Strange Doom Sayers tour
  March 5, 2013
• The Tribe and Big Cats Farewell Show
  February 27, 2013
• Method Man
  January 23, 2013
• Local Frames: New videos from the Starfolk, Toki Wright, SMMNR, and more
  January 11, 2013

More About

• Toki Wright
• D'Angelo (Musician)
• Raekwon
• Hip-Hop and Rap
• Arts, Entertainment, and Media

Warren G created the template of the rapper who phrases like a singer among singers who phrase like rappers, so laid-back that he's the last thing you remember about his biggest hit—though even there he was something new. The best you can say about the title single off 1994's Regulate... G Funk Era is it introduced Nate Dogg (a bridge to Montell Jordan and D'Angelo) while lending cool points to its sample source, Michael McDonald's "I Keep Forgettin' (Every Time You're Near)." Yet the chilling wonder of the album lays in its lesser or non-hits anyway: the vivid, stoned melancholy of "Do You See," "This Is the Shack," and the ostensibly upbeat "This D.J.," whose easy catchiness was a quieter variation on Snoop and Dre's blissed-out nihilism (to which G contributed as Long Beach friend and fam). Five solo albums later, G's latest, last year's The G Files, finds him indie (released on TTL) and as tuneful as ever on tracks such as "Masquerade" and "Hold On," where he sings as well as anyone on his deep guest list, which now includes both Doggs and Raekwon. With Heatbox, Toki Wright, and DJ ApplewJews. 18+.
Fri., July 30, 10 p.m., 2010