Warren G was lying in bed when he realized he could become the vice president of the United States.
“I was in bed, and the guy on the news says, ‘Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton,” he says. “Then, ‘Deez Nuts.’
“I said, ‘Wow. You’ve gotta be kidding me.’”
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Twenty-three years ago, Warren G propelled a joke about nuts into the mainstream when his skit appeared before Dr. Dre’s “Deeez Nuuuts” on the iconic rap album The Chronic.
But last night, Warren G learned his renowned joke about balls—two decades later—had gotten hotter than ever: Deez Nuts was now running for president.
“I was blown away to see something I did as a skit on there. It tripped me out. It really, really, really was a trip,” he says. “And to know that it came from a 15-year-old kid who’s a fan…”
That 15-year-old is Brady Olson, a high school sophomore from Wallingford, Iowa, who realized that anyone can file to run for president with the Federal Elections Commission—even if they don’t use their real name or address.
Olson chose the name “Deez Nuts,” then emailed Public Policy Polling asking the company to pit him against Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in their next survey. They did.
Deez Nuts garnered 9 percent of the vote in North Carolina.
Now, Warren G—the man who made the phrase famous—says he’s willing to be Olson’s vice president.
“If he wanted me to, I’d ride with him until the wheels fall off,” he says. “Who better than me? I’m ready. Let’s go.”
But first, Warren G wants to make clear how the name came about. It wasn’t a planned, written sketch created in the hopes of launching millions of Vine views 20 years later (even though it did).
“Deez Nuts” was a very real prank phone call, recorded on a whim.
“That was a skit I did. I said, ‘Dre, Turn the mic on. I’m gonna call one of my friends and I’m gonna get her,’” he says.
Then you hear what’s on The Chronic—Warren G asking a woman what she’s up going to do that day, then this:
“Did what’s-a-name done get at you yesterday?”
“Who?”
“Deeez Nuuuts.”
And it was so.
“This was real. I said, ‘Let me get her.’ So I called and I did,” says Warren.
Brady Olson was eight years away from being born when “Deeez Nuuuts” dropped. And 23 years later, Warren G, baffled and happy, says that skit “never goes away.”
“It’s a classic skit. It’s timeless,” he says.
That’s why Warren G is happy to endorse Olson’s candidacy.
“Just to know that someone who’s 15 years old is listening to my music and the work that I’ve done—it’s definitely a blessing,” he says.
If Olson will have him as a running mate, Vice President G has some policy suggestions for Deez Nuts’s growing platform.
“I would have Weed Wednesdays in the White House,” says Warren G, who pushed back his conversation with The Daily Beast by a few minutes to roll a joint. “It’s like how you got Taco Tuesdays. Weed Wednesdays: Relax from all the stress, from dealing with foreign policy and all of this other stuff.”
He has some serious suggestions to better the country, too.
“I would provide more opportunities for the kids of urban communities to go to school and learn trades—to get more jobs to take care of their families,” he says.
Nuts/G would have a more comprehensive criminal justice reform plan than most other declared candidates.
“I would take away the Three Strikes law,” Warren says. “These people going to jail for life for bullshit. You maybe stole a bag of chips (on your third strike) and get jail for life. Let’s start providing better schools so they can learn and get a job so they don’t have to steal.”
“I’d end all of the wars,” he says. “I’d bring all of the troops home and make sure that they’re taken care of for life—for what they did protecting our country.”
Sound like an unbeatable populist message? It might be. That’s why Warren G is trying to get in on the ground floor with Deez Nuts—at the very least, he’ll make a little money.
“He’s gonna have every young kid in the world voting for him,” he says. “Those other candidates—they better try to buy him out.”
He even has a campaign anthem lined up—but it’s not “Born in the U.S.A.” for the millionth time. It’s called “Keep On Hustlin’,” from an album he put out a couple of weeks ago.
“It explains that you’ve gotta hustle to maintain to provide for your family,” says G, then he clarifies. “Not by doing it the wrong way. Just by hustling.”
He says the campaign reminds him of that scene in the classic Richard Pryor movie Brewster’s Millions, where Montgomery Brewster has to spend $30 million in 30 days in order to win a lot more later on.
Brewster decides the best way to blow $30 million of somebody else’s money is to run for office. You know, like real politics.
“The only thing not silly is the power of the people’s vote,” Pryor says, in the movie, to a gaggle of reporters at a press conference.
Then Warren G quotes the rest of it.
“’I think the people should vote for ‘None of the Above,’” he says. “It’s just like that.”
