Popular Long Beach, California Native Attended School with SnoopUS hip-hop star Nate Dogg, who worked with Snoop Dogg, Warren G and Eminem, has died at the age of 41. His lawyer, Mark Geragos, said the singer died as a result of complications from two strokes he suffered in recent years.
Snoop Dogg paid tribute to a "true legend of hip-hop and R&B".
Nate Dogg, real name Nathaniel Hale, sang on Warren G's hit Regulate as well as tracks by Dr Dre, 50 Cent and Ludacris. On Twitter, Snoop Dogg said Nate Dogg was "one of my best friends and a brother to me since 1986 when I was a sophomore at Poly High where we met".
Snoop Dogg, Nate Dogg and Warren G began their careers in a rap trio in Long Beach called 213 in the early 1990s. Nate Dogg went on to feature on such hits as 50 Cent's 21 Questions, Eminem's Shake That and Area Codes by Ludacris.
Ludacris tweeted: "There is a certain void in hip-hop's heart that can never be filled. Glad we got to make history together."
His manager Rod McGrew tells TMZ that Nate Dogg’s life came to an unexpected end despite the progress he had made. He was “95% recovered from the first stroke in 2007” when a second stroke struck in 2008, rendering him partially paralyzed and causing partial memory loss. Up until his death, he had “cognitively fully recovered,” meaning that he had become completely aware and got his memory back.
McGrew spoke on behalf of Nate Dogg’s family and thanked fans for the overwhelming support. “We appreciate the enormous outpouring of response from all over the world. We greatly appreciate that and thank everyone for their prayers and support,” read the statement. “We know that Nate will be hanging out with his good friends 2Pac and Biggie.”
Record labels are approaching another financially weak year. According to Variety, the music industry officially closed out with a total of 297.9 million albums sold for the third quarter making it already 12 percent less than the previous year. 2007 saw a total of 500.5 million in sales with over 30 percent of the records purchased stemming from the fourth quarter. 
