The Game, Dr. Dre’s latest discovery, arrives on the hip-hop scene with a resume as scary as anything from “thug life” rappers Tupac Shakur and 50 Cent, who were shot more than a dozen times between them.
That’s why you’ll probably be hearing almost as much about the Game’s life story as his music, which chronicles his experiences growing up in foster homes, gangbanging and ending up with five bullet holes after a drug deal went wrong. (“Actually, seven bullet holes, but I don’t count the ins and outs,” he says.)
The Game, whose real name is Jayceon Taylor, looks as menacing as his history as he sits in a Los Angeles recording studio, where he has been putting the final touches on the debut album that is due in stores in December.
But when asked how it feels to be two months away from likely stardom, he sighs. The tough-guy bravado fades.
“I’m just so happy to be doing something positive with my life,” the Game, 24, says. “I’ve got a baby boy, and I’m trying to make a good future for him. I know the music business can be rough, but I’ve gone through stuff 10 times worse than anything I will encounter. None of that can compare to my life story.”
That story–climaxing with the night three years ago when he was shot–is so tailor made for today’s hard-core rap crowd that it’s easy to wonder if it isn’t too good to be true. One rapper’s Web site accuses the Game of fabricating a “street thug” image.
The Game loved rap growing up in Compton–south of Los Angeles–idolizing N.W.A., whose explosive “Straight Outta Compton” album in the late ’80s was a blueprint for gangsta rap. But the 6-foot-4 star guard on the Compton High School team thought his future was going to be basketball.
But those plans kept getting disrupted by his behavior. “I had a problem with authority growing up,” he says. “I’d get an A on the math test, then run outside and steal a car.”
He was placed in a foster home and turned to the streets–and drug dealing, he says.
His moment of truth came one night years later. One rule among drug dealers is to never sell out of your residence, but the Game got cocky. He didn’t know who was knocking, but he thought he could make a quick $300 or $400, so he opened his apartment door.
Three men wanted all the drugs. He was shot point blank and woke up 27 hours later in a hospital. While recuperating, he listened to some of his favorite albums–by Ice Cube, Public Enemy, Jay-Z, Tupac–and studied their techniques.
“My album is my story as a whole,” he says. The way the Game tells it, he changed his lifestyle after the shooting. Drawing inspiration from Compton gangsta rap pioneers N.W.A., he started rapping about his experiences. His demo tape got to N.W.A. co-founder Dr. Dre, who signed the Game in 2002 and has been carefully grooming him, producing four tracks on the album and putting him in the studio with Eminem and 50 Cent as well as producer Kanye West.
If the CD hits as big as expected, the Game will be the first giant West Coast rap star since another Dre find, Snoop Dogg, a decade ago. The recently released first single, “Westside Story,” celebrates the history of West Coast rap.
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Edited by Cara DiPasquale (cdipasquale@tribune.com) and Victoria Rodriguez (vrodriguez@tribune.com)
