Songoftheday 7/20/20 - They tell me that temptation is very hard to resist, you tell me that you want me I tried to hide my feelings d-o-g's ain't supposed to feel like this...
from the album G-Funk Classics - Vol. 1 & 2 (1998)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #33 (three weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 7
Today's song of the day comes from hip-hop singer/rapper Nate Dogg (Nate Hale), who had dropped out of school after moving to California, then instead of going right into the rap game, served in the military for three years. In 1994, his collaboration with rapper Warren G on the single "Regulate" from the basketball movie Above The Rim spent three weeks in the runner-up position on the American pop chart that summer. The pair had originally been in a trio with Nate's cousin Snoop Dogg (then "Snoop Doggy Dogg"), who had the original G-Funk breakthrough with his solo album Doggystyle, which Nate guested on. Two years later, Nate returned with a single that was to herald his debut solo album on Suge Knight's Death Row Records, "Never Leave Me Alone". Built on an interpolation of Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway's 70s soft-soul classic "Where Is The Love?", the record goes from his infatuation to a woman to finding out that the woman is his sidepiece to his wife/girlfriend with his son to going to jail over crimes he's committed. It escalates quickly. Anyhoo, Snoop Dogg repays the favor by offering a cameo on the song, while Val Young ("If You Should Ever Be Lonely") sings backup.
"Never Leave Me Alone" became Nate Dogg's second top-40 pop hit in November of 1996. The song climbed to #22 on Billboard magazine's R&B chart as well. Internationally, the single went to #2 in New Zealand (then a hotspot for rap/hip-hop music fans). However, the implosion of the Death Row label with Knights troubles caused the G-Funk Classics Vol. 1 album to be temporarily shelved. Nate eventually got his music back, and released the set with a companion Vol. 2 together independently in 1998. But by that time the G-Funk sound had been passed over, and the album only managed to make it to #58 on the Billboard 200 sales chart in America, and #20 on the R&B Albums list.
Up tomorrow: A treat of a rock band goes far.
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