The Singles Jukebox

But Dre might well be popping up again…

[Video]
[7.50]

Martin Skidmore: Back in the day when Dre was the greatest producer in the world and Death Row the most exciting label, Nate Dogg was g-funk’s soulful voice, sounding classical and even gospelly despite his subject matter. The laid-back, grinding beat here would be irresistible even without top rapping (and it’s not all great here, though I love Snoop) and singing. My one problem with this track is that I have been known to find myself singing along with it on my walkman, and a middle-aged white guy passing young black guys in my rough home area singing “I’m a motherfucking nigga from the street” is not a good idea.
[9]

Alfred Soto: “I’m a nigga from the muthafuckin’ streets,” Nate Dogg unconvincingly reminds us. The only time I smiled during this clenched-teeth posturing was when at one point Nate’s voice cracked.
[3]

Josh Langhoff: Nate’s role in this song is sort of like Ike Willis’s on Zappa records: doing the soulful bidding of a boss whose strength is definitely NOT singing. “Being funny” isn’t real high on Dre/Zappa’s list of strengths either, though I think Nate’s ultra-smooth threats are supposed to be some kind of hilarious juxtaposition. Do these guys ever wonder why it hurts when they pee?
[7]

Al Shipley: I grew up on The Chronic‘s singles, but not the album itself, so it’s embarrassing as a rap fan to admit to not being intimately familiar with this song. But yeah, this is fantastic, especially those little high notes that Nate rarely attempted later on as he focused more on the foghorn power of his lower register.
[8]

Kat Stevens: “I heard you wanna fuck with Dre? Well you picked the wrong motherfucking day“. The correct day would be the end of June when exams are finally over and it’s too hot to do anything except nod your head lazily and sip a stubby beer while your mate rolls another spliff in the park. That fuzzy bass could melt an entire iceberg.
[8]

Tal Rosenberg: The beat is one of the best on The Chronic, with those watery wah-wah guitars and that practically symphonic whiny G-Funk synth line snaking its way through those crisp Parliamentary snares. Nate’s performance is just whatever, and his voice feels a little high-pitched here, when what’s great about it is its baritone, that husky loverman voice, which comes later, and soon enough.
[7]

Asher Steinberg: This is a nice album track that reminds you of what a perfectly okay rapper Dre was before he became obsessed with spending all his time on knob-twiddling his beats into big impersonal sheeny slabs of nothingness. Frankly I find Nate’s efforts pretty desultory.
[8]

Mark Sinker: Dre, Daz and Snoop all perform with a canny eye on those watching them; the little sung falsetto upturn ND gives his lines is the sound of someone serene in his gift whether anyone’s out there or not.
[9]

Ian Mathers: As someone blissfully unaware of G Funk at the time, it’s really weird to hear Nate Dogg’s early work here; he’s like the reverse Leonard Cohen, growing more and more smooth with each year. I’m not sure what to do about the lyrics in most (all?) of the songs during Nate Dogg Tribute Week, since pretty much all of the songs have at least some parts that are completely odious, but at least in this case you’ve got that amazingly squelchy, grooving production, and a prolonged showcase for Nate at the end, sounding way rougher than I’m used to but singing his ass off anyways. I guess I’ll give the lyrics a pass this week. That would be picking the wrong motherfuckin’ day.
[8]

Jonathan Bradley: After one of the most famous skits in the history of hip-hop, Dre’s dangerously charming and charmingly dangerous g-funk bounce rolls in. The iconic whining melody and fuzz bass so effectively obscured the rudimentary quality of Andre’s rapping abilities that we’ve only just now, on the eve of the release of Detox and nearly two decades later, tired of his lead-footed lyrical trample. Nate Dogg, the subject of our retrospective, provides the highlight that does not involve taunting a woman via phone: some rambling about the importance of not fucking with Dre that ends up part outro, part verse and all awesome. Like so much of the West Coast’s output at the time, it works because everyone involved is doing nothing more than what he is best at, and doing it at the peak of his ability.
[8]