G Funk Era? Posted by b

Warren G: Super Soul Sis, This is The Shack, Runnin' Wit No Breaks From: Regulate... G Funk Era [1994, Def Jam] Whew! Been a while. A lot of good music coming through the Fuzz lately. Hopefully this fits in ok. This past Memorial Day weekend, I joined some friends in an exercise of unabashed music geekdom: we sat down to collectively determine the greatest album of all time. The process began a month in advance with an invitation to 20+ people. Ultimately, 11 people chose to "compete" by nominating their 10 favorite albums into play. I won't get into the inner-workings of the final voting/selection process; but, it involved 3 days of intensive listening, steady drinking, discussion, and a dash of politicking/vote trading. Exhausted, we eventually declared Abbey Road the victor (this was an English language classic rock crowd). Why the story? The whole experience was surprisingly soul-searching: As I prepared my 10, I found myself ruthlessly cutting out favorite records for so many reasons (one "weak" track, too esoteric to fly with the other voters, didn't resonate as much with my current state of mind as it did back in the day, etc...). In the end, I was surprised to name Warren G's Regulate... G Funk Era as the sole Hip Hop representative on my top 10 list. As a start-to-finish listen, it slipped past: Illmatic, 36 Chambers, Ready to Die, The Infamous, Southernplayalistic, Da' Shinin', Doggystyle, Chronic. When it came down to it, I realized that not only do I listen to Regulate more than any other Hip Hop album, but that I listen to it more than many albums of any genre. And now, as I attempt to further my Hip Hop education- a good portion of which has come from this very blog and its blogroll - by reading Nelson George's Hip Hop America, I ask myself: Is this the type of cross-over selection that would elicit a collective groan from most Hip Hop purists? Is it aging gracefully into classic status? Is it a West Coast footnote? Just where does Regulate stand in the Hip Hop canon?