There’s two main takeaways you can have when you listen to Warren G’s classic “Regulate.” For starters, it’s one of the great storytelling rap songs of all time. The Long Beach rapper seamlessly paints the scene with humor and intensity alike, all over the timeless Michael McDonald record “I Keep Forgettin’.” The other takeaway is that Nate Dogg is a stone cold killer. Warren G made him sound like the perfect hitman; when anything bad happens, he’ll “make some bodies turn cold.”
There are plenty of artists that have made records about violence But it’s not always the case that there’s truth to their lyrics. However, apparently, that is not the case at all with Nate Dogg. On Friday, January 16th, rapper My Favorite Color reflected on X about the mythos surrounding the SoCal crooner. He recalls how the singer was initially just Nathaniel Dwayne Hale in the U.S. Marines. Then, when he went back home, he was grizzled and cold-blooded in the streets. Consequently, if things got serious, Hale was the one to call as if he was ‘John Wick.’
Nate Dogg Heralded as The Real ‘John Wick’
“This n***a Nate Dogg was an ex-marine so my cousin would talk to me about him like he was the Super Crip of Long Beach. He’d describe this n***a like he was John Wick and tell me he’d only get called when shit got serious and there were no other options,” My Favorite Color tweeted.
Naturally, people made tons of “Regulate” jokes. One person mused about how a John Wick type of film would play out with Nate Dogg. But this isn’t just folklore on the internet. Instead, two of his past collaborators told HipHopDX that his military past made a ton of sense to them. “It’s funny, I never even knew he was a Marine. But that might explain his stoicism,” DJ Quik said back in 2008. “[He was] just a calm under pressure kinda dude. But, generally a nice guy. I never seen Nate excited; he wasn’t excitable.”
Meanwhile, Pharoahe Monch looked back on one of the few times Nate Dogg actually talked about his past. “I was working on ‘Pledge of Allegiance’ [from Nate’s Music & Me album] and Nate was drinking a bottle of Hennessy, and I had my vodka, and it [had] got loose. He was like, ‘Yeah, man, that’s like that time I had my M-16, and I was aiming my s**t,’” Monch recalled. And I was like, ‘What?!’ [Laughs] I was like, ‘What the hell is he talking about? And what the hell is he doing with an M-16? [That’s] a military issue machine gun.’”
The post The Internet Calls Nate Dogg the Real ‘John Wick’ As Fans Look Back on His Military and Street Past appeared first on VICE.
