Celebrating the 20th anniversary of his debut album Regulate… G Funk Era, Warren G visited the SKEE Live show and spoke with its host DJ Skee about his start in music. While on the show, Warren G explained his childhood relationship with Snoop Dogg as well as learning how to use an MPC from older brother Dr. Dre.
“I never thought it would get this big man,” Warren G said of his own debut and solo career. “I was just in love with music. Just doing it and just wanted the local people to hear it. Somehow or someway it just caught on and blew up for real.”
Asked about how he learned how to produce records in the first place, Warren G shared learning the trade from Dr. Dre.
“Dr. Dre, my oldest brother, he paved the way for me and Snoop to get a chance to get into the studio,” he said. “Back then I was just deejaying so I wasn’t really that active [or] have too much input in what was going on. So I asked him to show me how to work the MPC 60 and he showed me. I was maybe about 18, 17 [or] 18, right around there. So he showed me and after that I just started picking it up because I wanted to be more involved in what was going on instead of just a deejay. I wanted to produce. I already rapped with Snoop back in the day with the Voltron crew, I had that already. It was lovely man, that’s what introduced me into starting to create this good music.”
During the interview, Warren G also explained his reaction to Dr. Dre’s early success while he himself was still a child.
“It was off the chain,” he said of his half-brother’s rise in the industry. “It was incredible. I was in junior high school and I would sneak his jacket and wear it to school. It had the World Class Wreckin’ Cru on it. I was just really, really happy for him and looked up to him as a kid—I still look up to him, he’s a cool cat.”
Sharing the story of growing up with with Snoop Dogg and living just blocks away from his frequent collaborator, Warren G detailed attending the same schools as Snoop.
“Me and Snoop, we went to elementary school [together],” he said. “It was me, Snoop, and his brother Jerry. We all stayed in the same neighborhood. Snoop lived on 19th and Lewis, I stayed on 21st and Lewis. From elementary school…to playing sports, we always was around each other. As we got older we kind of started distancing ourselves a little bit but then one day I was at school at Jordan High, I’m in the lunch line, I hear somebody calling my name…I turned around and looked and it was Snoop. I said, ‘Snoop, what you doing up here?’ We linked back up in high school and it’s been on ever since. We been putting it down together.”
The “Regulate” artist also recalled feeling like Snoop was bound for his current success.
“I mean, I knew it,” he said. “That’s why I kept staying on him so hard to keep rapping. You know, don’t give up. We almost got caught up in a different way of life. I was just like, ‘You know what man, we gotta chill and just stay on the right path man. Even if it takes for us to be broke like we was, we just gotta stay on that path and keep working.’”
