Ain't no fun without Nate Dogg
Hip-hop's consummate hook-man may go down in history for singing one of the illest verses in recorded music
The man who made it cool for gangsters to swoon, Nate Dogg, died yesterday at 41. After suffering strokes in 2007 and 2008, he had reportedly been living in a nursing home. The voice of the G-Funk era, Nate Dogg worked with everyone from Dr. Dre to Mos Def, making him hip-hop's go-to hook-man as he helped establish the sound of Death Row Records and paved the way for sing-song rappers like T-Pain.
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- R.I.P. from Luda
But there was never anything cheeky or ironic about Nate's delivery; the man never so much as cracked a smile. Yet his melodic, gospel-tinged tenor elevated the otherwise gutter subgenre of gangsta rap into something graceful, particularly as a member of the trio, 213, alongside Snoop Dogg and Warren G.
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While there are many great Nate Dogg collaborations, we'll only highlight a couple here — the first being Ludacris' early classic "Area Codes," because it literally put the burgeoning Atlanta MC on the map back in 2001; and the second, perhaps one of Nate's most memorable early appearances, "Ain't No Fun (If the Homies Can't Have None)" from Snoop's 1993 debut Doggystyle, because the contrast of Nate Dogg eloquently crooning about a ho who "licked his balls" makes it one of the illest verses in the history of recorded music.
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Ludacris feat. Nate Dogg, "Area Codes"
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Snoop Doggy Dogg, "Ain't No Fun (If the Homies Can't Have None)"