Nate Dogg died last night. If you read this site regularly you know I don’t often get caught up in the rampant (and understandable) sentimentality that usually comes with a celebrity’s death, but the loss of hip-hop’s preeminent vocalist made me legitimately sad. Nate Dogg was a frequent topic of conversation among my friends in both high school and college, all of whom wondered how he managed to so sharply cut out his niche as the guy who sings the hook in just about every West Coast rap song.

“Regulate,” predictably I suppose, helped me start appreciating hip-hop — and for that matter, maybe funk music too — as much as any other track not on Doggystyle. It is a testament to Nate Dogg’s smooth style that the man could make a lyrical depiction of a dice game-come-crime scene accessible to a bunch of suburban middle schoolers on the other side of the country. Now on to the great East Side Motel in the sky.