Suge Knight missed out on Warren G‘s success when he didn’t sign him to Death Row Records – and apparently he was mad the “Regulate” hitmaker was able to make it without him.
Appearing as a guest on the The Gauds Show, a clip from the podcast shared on Tuesday (April 25) sees the West Coast rapper and producer go into detail about the nature of his and Knight’s relationship back at the height of his career.
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“Snoop told Suge: ‘You could have had Warren G. You let Warren G go.’ Them n-ggas was trippin’,” Warren told host Ray Daniels. “And I was trippin’ too! It wasn’t like I’ma let you n-ggas just come and try to get off on me or try to do whatever y’all do. N-gga I got Regulators! I didn’t want it to be like that.
“And I still be saying Suge is a good dude. He was a good dude, it’s just that when all the money shit started kicking in, all that other shit started kicking in, the Hollywood shit started kicking in, that’s when he changed.”
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He continued: “I still said that these was my people even though these n-ggas would be tripping on me at certain places. And I was just like, ‘I’m not gon’ let you n-ggas tell me Nate can’t perform with me.’ And this is my fucking stage up here with the Billboard Awards? The big stage? He’s performing n-gga. Stop it.”
Check out the snippet from Warren G’s appearance on The Gauds Show below:
Warren G kept close ties to Death Row despite never officially signing to the label. His step-brother Dr. Dre co-founded the legendary West Coast imprint, while his 213 groupmates Snoop Dogg and Nate Dogg became two of the label’s biggest stars during their 1990s heyday.
Despite his affiliation with the camp and contributions to classic Death Row releases such as The Chronic, Doggystyle and the Above the Rim soundtrack, Warren infamously didn’t share the best relationship with Suge.
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During an appearance on Talib Kweli’s People’s Party podcast earlier this month, the G-Funk legend recalled the time he got into an altercation with Knight over Snoop Dogg’s Death Row contract.
According to Warren G, he refused to let Suge intimidate him and threatened to call for backup — including one particularly trigger-friendly friend.
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“I said, ‘N-gga, if you don’t get your hands off me, I’m calling my brother, I’m calling all my homeboys,’” he said. “He let me go. And I had one of my guys with me; luckily he didn’t have no gun ’cause he was a gunner. If he’d have had something, he probably would’ve shot him — and I didn’t want him to do it, but he probably would’ve. I know how he is.”
Despite escaping from the altercation unscathed, Warren G said that moment set the tone for his future dealings with Death Row, who would often freeze him out of tours and other projects. Worse yet, being cut-off from the label meant Warren was forced to go back to the hood to regroup.
“From that point on, we didn’t see eye to eye,” he added. “I didn’t hate him, but when it was time to start hitting the road and doing things like that, it was like, ‘We don’t got a ticket for you, you ain’t going.’ I’m like, ‘Why? Shit, what the fuck is that?!’ Dre was like, ‘Go and be your own man. Do your thang.’
“It hurt. It was fucked up. I had to go back to the hood, sleeping on the floor and all I had was my crate of records that I was helping out with The Chronic, I had my MPC60 drum machine, my Teknik and my Numark mixer.”
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However, it was those very tools and that desire to succeed that resulted in Warren G signing to Def Jam Records and becoming a star in his own right.
