REVIEW: Warren G., Regulate... G Funk Era (Violator/RAL)
- Scott Williams
"Ho, bitch. bitch, ho. yo, hit da muthafuckin' gat, Nigga!" - Yeah, whatever...
I'll admit it, gangsta rap grates my nerves. Those furious cuts that took hip-hop to Senator's desks, mainstream commercial success, and off radio play lists, now sound like the ill bleatings of some corporate funded South Central Planning Board. Exploitative at the very least, the genre flows loaded with predictable all pain/no gain subject matter and fouler-than-thou misogyny. Why? -because it sells...
Every once and a while, however, Los Angeles drops something interesting. Witness: Cypress Hill, Domino, and newcomer, Warren G.
Debut album, Regulate... G Funk Era is a "soooo funktified" mix of melodic Long Beach ghetto reality and laid-back bass bombs that juxtaposes waving palm trees and faded graffiti scrawl. The rhyme inventor/producer's anecdotes, are sometimes harrowing/ sometimes hilarious. The rough-cut humor warms the album, but turns gangrene with lines like "I knows this/ I blows this/ I'm funky; you stank/ You're a walkin' blood bank/ I'm a jar with my shank." Still, despite the overt gangsta lean, Regulate... is surprisingly easy listening. Wax down your `63 Impala and bump with a trunk o'G-funk.
Whereas a few years ago, hip-hop marched to the rhythm of James Brown's "Funky Drummer", the bomb in nine-four has got to be George Clinton. Like fellow rappers, Ice Cube and Coolio, G. pays homage to Clinton and his ensemble of Allstars, incorporating P-Funky elements, adding sorely missed complexity to what could have been just another bland R&B understructure. Eschewing pre-programmed boom for a rollicking live bass, Warren G. brings freshness to a genre that needs to evolve past the confines of base criminality.
Still, all points considered, Regulate... G Funk Era arrives late for the mothership connection. What California needs is hip-hop visionaries like De La Soul, Cool DJs like Red Alert, and political prophets of rage like Public Enemy. But then, what does this East Coast suburbanigga know, anyway? It's a G-thang, I wouldn't understand...
