Artist The Game

Website
The Game

In mainstream hip-hop it’s beats and hype, not clothes, that make the man. Accordingly, towering Compton gangsta-rap bozo The Game rode Dr. Dre’s production and 50 Cent’s guest verses to multi-platinum glory on his much-buzzed-about 2005 debut The Documentary. The hits continued after The Game parted ways with Dre and 50 on 2006’s Doctor’s Advocate, but his previously winning formula (big-name producers, shameless name-dropping, fetishization of rap’s past, endless self-pity/self-aggrandizement) began to wear thin on 2008’s anemic LAX. Plenty of rappers have a song or segment in their live show shouting out fallen rappers and hip-hop’s golden age; The Game is the only rapper who pays homage to hip-hop in every goddamned self-plagiarizing verse.

Updated 03/20/2009