Songoftheday 4/26/19 - It was a clear black night a clear white moon, Warren G. is on the streets, trying to consume...
from the albums Above The Rim (Original Soundtrack) and Regulate...G Funk Era (both 1994)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #2 (three weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 18
Today's song of the day comes from rappers Warren G (Warren Griffin) and Nate Dogg (Nate Hale), who with Nate's cousin Calvin Broadus, or "Snoop Doggy Dogg", started out as a group called 213. After Snoop broke through with the Dr. Dre-produced album Doggystyle, and the top ten hit "What's My Name?", 213 broke up, and eventually Dre, Warren's stepbrother, helped him and Nate get a step up in the music biz by bringing them to John Singleton to contribute a track to the movie Poetic Justice starring Tupac Shakur and Janet Jackson. The result, "Indo Smoke" by Mista Grimm featuring Warren G & Nate Dogg, was a minor hit on the pop (#56) and R&B (#63) chart, but it created enough buzz to have them signed to rap/hip-hop label Def Jam and have the opportunity to create a song for another soundtrack. That would be the basketball drama Above The Rim, also featuring 2Pac, and the song the pair would come up with was "Regulate". Based on a sample of Michael McDonald's top ten hit "I Keep Forgettin'" from 1982, the smooth yet street-sounding record was released shortly after the soundtrack's first single, SWV's "Anything", but in no time eclipsed that song to become Warren G's first big success, and down the road the title track from his debut album...
"Regulate" became both Warren G and Nate Dogg's first and biggest hit, reaching the runner-up spot on the American pop Hot 100 chart in July of 1994. The song also spent three weeks at #2 on Billboard magazine's R&B chart. Internationally, the single was also a big success, reaching the top ten in Sweden (#4), Norway (#4), the UK (#5), Ireland (#5), Switzerland (#5), New Zealand (#5), France (#7), Germany (#7), the Netherlands (#7), and Belgium (#10). "Regulate" was nominated for a Grammy Award for best Duo/Group Rap Performance in 1995, which they lost to Salt-N-Pepa's "None Of Your Business". Meanwhile, the Above The Rim soundtrack was a massive success, reaching #2 on the sales charts and spinning off more minor hits with the Lady Of Rage's "Afro Puffs" (#57 Pop/#31 R&B), Sweet Sable's "Old Times' Sake" (#93 Pop/#15 R&B), and the double-sided single with H-Town's "Part Time Lover" (#57 Pop/#9 R&B) and Al B. Sure!'s "I'm Still In Love With You" (#62 R&B).
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Here's Warren and Nate performing "Regulate" on the MTV Music Video Awards in 1994...
And live on TV the following year...
And lastly, after Nate's death in 2011, with Snoop Dogg filling in for him in Paris...
Up tomorrow: We get introduced to a young soul singer at the beginning, alphabetically.
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