Critic's Review
Jason Birchmeier, All Music Guide
Despite being a true clutch player throughout the '90s and into the early 2000s, it took Nate Dogg nearly a decade to record an impressive album. It's hard to believe. After all, nearly everything Nate touched turned to gold, whether it was G-funk classics like Warren G's "Regulate" and tha Dogg Pound's "Let's Play House" or latter-day West Coast anthems like Snoop Dogg's "Lay Low" and Dr. Dre's "The Next Episode." Nate even expanded his Midas touch beyond Cali, scoring hits down South with Ludacris ("Area Codes") and out East with Fabolous ("Can't Deny It"). If rap had a true clutch player in 2001, it was Nate: if you needed a hit, you put Nate on the hook and it became a sure-fire hit. However, clutch player or not, Nate still hadn't recorded a successful album of his own. His previous efforts were haphazard and under-financed. Music & Me is his first great album, an album on a par with his undeniable talent as a vocalist -- nothing less than impressive; perhaps even peerless. Before bestowing all the praise on Nate though, it's important to recognize the contributions made by producers Megahertz, Bink, and Mel-Man -- three of rap's most promising producers at the time of this album's release in late 2001. They don't craft your typical hip-hop tracks because Nate isn't your typical rapper. He doesn't rap; he sings. Therefore, he needs songs that are actually songs and not just beats to drop rhymes over. And these producers deliver just that: developed songs. The many guest rappers -- Snoop, Kurupt, Dre, Ludacris, Xzibit, Fabolous, and more -- no doubt help the album, though. They keep the album from getting too smooth and too smoked out; they "keep it G.A.N.G.S.T.A.," as Nate would say. And, yeah, he surely represents the gangsta rather than the silky ladies' man on this album. Every song Nate sings is about females to some extent, but he's not whispering sweet poesy into their ears. To quote the Dogg himself, "Your wife/My bitch/Your love/My trick." No apologies. That's what's great about Nate -- he's got love but he's also a gangsta; he's radio-friendly but he's also blunt. Rarely can you have it both ways -- elegance that's not pandering. [The clean version edits moments of profanity.]
