West Coast Standards

Two names in Ren Leo's archive carry the West Coast's foundational catalog. Too $hort, the Oakland pioneer with more than twenty albums, platinum records in Born to Mack and Short Dog's in the House, and the enduring anthem "Blow the Whistle." He is now part of Mount Westmore alongside Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, and E-40.

Warren G is the other. His 1994 album Regulate... G Funk Era went multi-platinum and gave the genre its most recognizable single, "Regulate," recorded with Nate Dogg. Before that he was part of 213 with Snoop Dogg and Nate Dogg, the group that seeded a generation of West Coast sound.

Southern producers who study the West Coast tend to study the same things: patience in the groove, space in the mix, melody carried by bass. The archive places Ren Leo in the company of the people who wrote those rules.