Entry · catalog no. 1121
G-funk
/ /ˈdʒi ˌfʌŋk/ /JEE-funk
noun · Pomona and Compton, California · 1990s
✓ Verified
1.
A Los Angeles production style that drops gangsta rap to a cruising tempo and rebuilds it out of 1970s funk: rolling bass, a thin high synth line bent like a whistle, loose live-feel percussion, and sung hooks riding under the raps. Rather than chopping a break into fragments, its producers replay and stretch whole grooves, most often out of the Parliament-Funkadelic catalog. The G is for gangsta, and the name marks exactly that pairing — street narrative carried on music soft enough to ride to.
“He wanted the whole album G-funk — windows down, that synth crying over everything.”
Origin & Attribution
Los Angeles County at the turn of the 1990s, specifically Pomona and Compton. Above the Law, led by producer Cold 187um, were already working the sound on 'Livin' Like Hustlers' in February 1990 and named it outright on 'Call It What U Want' with 2Pac and Money-B, issued as a Ruthless single on April 23, 1992 — nearly eight months before 'The Chronic' reached stores. Dr. Dre's 'The Chronic' (December 15, 1992) is what carried G-funk worldwide, and popular history has largely handed him the invention; Cold 187um has said publicly that Dre took the template after hearing it, and Warren G has corroborated that account. The accurate framing is that Above the Law built and named it while Dre perfected and sold it.
1990
Above the Law's 'Livin' Like Hustlers' sets the template out of Pomona
1992
'Call It What U Want' names the sound in April; 'The Chronic' takes it national in December
1994
Warren G's 'Regulate...G Funk Era' puts the name on a mass-market album cover
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
The West
Pomona and Compton, California · 1990s
Spoken by
Los Angeles-area rappers and producers
$GFUNKThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Steady34 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
88/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1992
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@bayarea
Oakland, CA
@ladi
Los Angeles, CA
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Citations & Sources
■
Above the Law featuring 2Pac and Money-B, 'Call It What U Want,' Ruthless Records single, produced by Cold 187um — April 23, 1992
song · released
■
Dr. Dre, 'The Chronic,' Death Row/Interscope — December 15, 1992
album · released
■
+ Cite a sourceWarren G, 'Regulate...G Funk Era,' Violator/RAL — June 7, 1994
album · released
See also