In 1992, I was 13 years old, so my rap exposure was limited to mostly Hammer and Vanilla Ice and Another Bad Creation and Salt-N-Pepa and probably Kris Kross and TLC by that time? It certainly did not include NWA or anything Eazy E related. In other words, rap and hip hop was party music and ultimately as non-threatening as Boyz II Men. I recall having a vague sense that Gangsta Rap existed and was maybe even familiar with Ice-T because of Body Count and probably because of the news. It's hard to say, things were moving very quickly at the time. I knew of Ice Cube, at minimum because of Boyz in the Hood.
What I do recall is "G Thang" being played (once again) every hour on MTV and it was so badass and so dangerous and so naughty, it appealed very much to a young teenaged white girl going to catholic school, living in suburban Honolulu. The hook itself was very dangerous. It sounded very serious despite being so infectious, almost like if gang-related murder sounded like music, it would sound like the hook from "G Thang." It's the kind of thing where you could see joining a gang because of that sound.
The B side of the cassingle was the instrumental and it got to the point where I could rap the whole thing along in my head. We've never done it for karaoke before, but I can still hang in there on Dr. Dre's part and Pete can do Snoop (fitting on both accounts I think). We will rap along when watching the video at home on Friday nights though. And laugh at The refrigerator in the "Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang" video that's full of 40s.