Nathaniel Dwayne Hale was born on August 19, 1969, in Long Beach (some sources say Clarksdale, Mississippi). His family moved to Mississippi, where he sang in churches; at 14 he came back to Long Beach. After three years in the Marines he formed the trio 213 in 1990 with his cousin Snoop Dogg and his friend Warren G. His deep, church-trained voice made him the most sought-after hook singer on the West Coast, a style later dubbed “gangsta singing.”
“How Long Will They Mourn Me?”
His first song with Tupac came in 1994 for the album Thug Life, Volume I. How Long Will They Mourn Me? is a lament for Tupac’s murdered friend Kato, produced by Warren G and Nate Dogg themselves, together with a co-producer credited as Jay. In a 2003 interview, Warren G said he suggested Nate for the hook and that Nate came straight to the studio. The album was released on September 26, 1994.
Death Row, 1996
When Tupac was at Death Row in 1996, Nate Dogg was on the roster. On All Eyez on Me he sings on two tracks: All About U, with Snoop Dogg, Dru Down and the Outlawz’ Yaki Kadafi and Hussein Fatal, produced by Johnny J, and Skandalouz. More shared recordings surfaced later, among them Me & My Homies on his double album G-Funk Classics, Vol. 1 & 2, which Death Row released in 1998 as he was leaving the label.
In Daz Dillinger’s telling, Nate Dogg also appears as a peacemaker when Tupac and Kurupt clashed in 1996.
Farewell
After Death Row, Nate Dogg became a fixture on hits of the 2000s, from Dr. Dre’s The Next Episode to Ludacris’ Area Codes. He suffered two strokes in 2007 and 2008 and died of their complications on March 15, 2011, aged 41, according to his attorney Mark Geragos, at a care facility in Laguna Niguel, Orange County. He was buried in his hometown of Long Beach, where Snoop Dogg and Warren G led the mourners.