Over a decade after three of the West Coast's top rap artists --
Snoop Dogg,
Warren G, and
Nate Dogg -- broke up their
213 trio and pursued respectively successful solo careers, they reunited for a long-rumored, much-anticipated supergroup album, The Hard Way. The oft-told
213 story is somewhat of a West Coast rap legend. It begins at the dawn of the '90s, a couple years before
Dr. Dre unleashed
The Chronic. At that time,
Snoop (born Calvin Broadus),
Warren (
Warren Griffin III), and
Nate (Nathaniel Hale) were young and unknown yet talented and aspiring artists from Long Beach, an outlying neighborhood of Los Angeles.
Snoop and
Warren rapped while
Nate sang the melodies and hooks, and inspired by
Richie Rich's 415 group from the Cali Bay Area, the trio named itself after its own area code,
213. In particular,
Warren was the most enterprising member of the group and kept trying to turn his half-brother, the one and only
Dr. Dre, on to
213. It was a priceless connection, and liking what he heard,
Dre invited the three to join his then-burgeoning Death Row Records camp.
Snoop got most of the attention, initially starring alongside
Dre on "Deep Cover," a big 1992 hit that set the stage for
the Doctor's
Chronic album later that year. Of course, that album became a gargantuan success, in commercial as well as artistic terms.
Snoop became an overnight superstar, and both
Warren and
Nate soon shot to stardom themselves on their hit duet "Regulate." Ten years later
Snoop remained atop the rap game, one of the few perennial superstars -- not only a recording artist but also a popular touring artist, Hollywood actor, boutique label owner, and media personality. However, the success
Warren and
Nate enjoyed with "Regulate" had simmered over the years. Both maintained lukewarm solo careers but couldn't get a good break. Then came a one-off collaboration between these three former group mates: "So Fly," a mixtape freestyle send-up of
Monica's hit single "So Gone." The song became a surprise radio and underground hit in summer 2003 and quickly led to an album deal with TVT Records. The reunited
213 then hit the studio, and roughly a year later, in August 2004, The Hard Way was released to much fanfare, preceded by the release of lead single "Groupie Luv." ~ Jason Birchmeier