Nate Dogg

Two seconds. Whether you know his name or not, that’s about how long it takes to recognize one of Nate Dogg’s honey-dipped hooks. To hammer that point home, we’re throwing down some of the G’d-up crooner’s biggest hits — cuts that flooded the streets as fans mourned his untimely passing on March 15, 2011, including the moonlit melodies of “Regulate,” the posse-cut perfection of “Ain’t No Fun (If the Homies Can’t Have None),” and the lean guitar licks of “21 Questions,” one of 50 Cent’s first and only real-deal love jams.

But as our Next Steps proves — again and again — no one brings out the game’s sensitive-but-gritty side quite like Nathaniel Dwayne Hale.

Owning one of hip-hop’s most-wanted voices left Nate Dogg with little time to lay down his own music. He snuck in a few solo smashes here and there, though, from the galloping bassline and crisp beats of “Never Leave Me Alone” to the speaker-slappin’ handclaps and laser-like synth lines of “Dolla Dolla Bill.” And then there’s the puddle-jumpin’ G-funk groove of “Groupie Luv,” a Herbie Hancock-tweaking single from 213 — the sorely overlooked supergroup that’s rounded out by the rest of Nate’s LBC crew, Snoop Dogg and Warren G . . .

. . . both of whom pop up in our Deep Cuts as well, alongside everyone from Mos Def to Dr. Dre.

No matter how you look at it, there’s no denying Nate Dogg’s hall-of-fame status in the scrappy, mic-slayin’ realm of hardcore hip-hop. Seriously — it’s as if he never met a bulletproof beat or slick sample he couldn’t steamroll with genuine soul. That goes for the creeping chords of Kanye West’s favorite Dr. Dre track (“Xxplosive”); the tense, battle-ready build of “‘Till I Collapse”; the cruise-control keys of “Deeez Nuuuts”; and the underground uprising of “Oh No,” which dropped Nate’s unstoppable choruses in the same cut as two of New York’s hungriest MCs, Mos Def and Pharoahe Monch.

“Regulators! Mount up.” Spit that phrase in the presence of anyone who had a radio handy in the mid-’90s, and they’re gonna either smile or burst out in tears. That’s because hip-hop lost a true legend in 2011 — one who left his stamp on more hits than any Essentials set could ever hope to compile. We did our best, though, handpicking Nate Dogg’s most memorable special appearances and starring roles from a towering stack of singles. We’re talkin’ everything from the dawn of gangsta rap (Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Warren G) to the rise of new-school rappers, like the Game, 50 Cent, and Eminem, who said what the rest of us were thinking soon after the singer’s death: “Nate’s voice will never be replaced. He helped create the blueprint for West Coast hip-hop.” One last time, then: “Hold up, heyyyy”. . .