Compton Rapper Game Returns to an Industry That's Gone Soft

"It's all house beats on the radio," Game laments. "If you're not pumping your fist, you're doing the wrong thing."

He's a throwback to an era when "gangsta" rappers were actually in gangs. And though he's more settled — with homes in Glendale, Porter Ranch, Culver City, Florida and New York — he retains an unhinged madness that still rears its head. In 2008, he was incarcerated for 60 days for pulling a White Men Can't Jump and pointing a gun at a basketball rival on the court.

PHOTO BY BRANDON SHOWERS

Related Content

• New Survey Gives Beats By Dre Headphones Low Marks
  June 6, 2013
• Dr. Dre on His USC Academy: "This Is the Biggest Thing I've Ever Been a Part Of"
  May 16, 2013
• Could Dr. Dre Save KDAY?
  June 19, 2013
• Dr. Dre, Jimmy Iovine Donate $70 Million To USC For Arts Academy
  May 15, 2013
• How's That "Millennium of Aftermath" Going?
  August 20, 2012

More About

• The Game (Rapper)
• Dr. Dre
• 50 Cent
• Hip-Hop and Rap
• Arts, Entertainment, and Media

A saving grace is that Game is so artful at media manipulation that he could get hired as White House press secretary if he ever needs to find new work. His sheriff's department shenanigans earned coverage everywhere from CNN to Reuters to Slate. His recent diss track, "Uncle Otis," lampooned Jay-Z and Kanye West's new hit "Otis" and operated as a Trojan horse to publicize his own release date.

So you'd think he'd be willing to elaborate on his new record a week before its release. But in predictably perplexing fashion, Game doesn't discuss specifics. You may be invited to play the game, but inevitably, the Game will try to play you.

'"You say that R.E.D. stands for a rededication to craft. What happened between this and LAX?"

"You've got to wait and see."

"I have to write this story."

"Good luck."

"You don't think about how this album differs from your past ones?"

"Maybe. But I don't talk about R.E.D."

" With record sales declining, don't you have to hustle more?"

"Nah, I'm just chilling."

"Didn't you just get off multiple tours in the last year?"

"Nah, I'm just chilling. Scrooge McDuck status."

His publicist describes him as "an open book," and it's partially true. The Cedar Block Piru Blood will readily delve into his fractured upbringing: the foster home in Carson and the corrosive violence of crack-era Compton. But ask Game about anything since Dr. Dre anointed him the next West Coast prince, and prepare for plot twists that go nowhere and enough acrimony for a dozen third acts. He's an open book with an unreliable narrator.

The man ... walked into a jungle, and comes out, the age of 21, and he's rich! The world is an oyster, but you don't crack it open on a mattress.

The cash was stashed under the mattress. The crack was whipped up on the stove. The real riches arrived later. They followed the trail of bullets — five of them, embedded inside the arms, legs and belly of Jayceon Taylor. It all transpired the first year that he was legally able to sip Olde English.

Two older half-brothers — both Nutty Blocc Crips — had been murdered in gang violence, but everyone expected Jayceon to escape. It was like Biggie said: You either slang crack rock or you've got a wicked jump shot. And Jayceon had a legit J, serious hops and an athletic 6-foot-4-inch frame.

At 31, he claims he's still able to windmill-dunk. During his teenage years, he held down the Compton High back court alongside former USC star Jeff Trepagnier. Through AAU and club ball, he befriended Gilbert Arenas and Baron Davis, the latter of whom is godfather to Game's oldest son.

But a scholarship to Washington State was retracted, he says, when he was caught pushing weed in Pullman. The university has no record of his tenure, but Game maintains he spent six weeks there in the fall of 1998. "I went to practice once, but that was it. It's funny how due to the nature of my music, Washington State claims they never pursued me or gave me a scholarship."

Brief stints at Antelope Valley, Harbor and Cerritos community colleges followed, but the lure of asphalt and Arm & Hammer was stronger. At the time, his older half-brother Big Fase 100 (government name: George Taylor III), a Cedar Block Piru Blood of local infamy, was running the streets of West Compton.

The pair set up a drug house to move product. The rule was no customers past midnight, but late one evening a door knock interrupted the younger brother's game of Madden football.

"Through the peephole, I saw this weird harmless dude I knew," Game remembers. "Then three guys kicked down the door and tried to rob me."

Taylor sprinted to his Glock on the table and started wrestling with one of his attackers. As he began to tear the gun away, bullets sprayed.

"I didn't think I'd been hit. So I crawled down the hallway, heard three or four more shots and fainted for 10 minutes. They thought they killed me and left without taking anything," Game says. Regaining consciousness, he oozed into the bathroom, pulled himself onto the sink and lifted up his wifebeater. "Blood splattered all over the mirror."

The rest of the story has ossified into press-kit mythology. Checking himself out of the hospital to convalesce at his grandmother's, Taylor asked Fase to bring "the classics" to his bedside: albums from Spice 1, Jay-Z, Biggie, Nas, Ice Cube and DJ Quik. Memorizing the lyrics and absorbing the patterns, Game became the rap RoboCop — a cyborg in a bulletproof suit sent to wreak havoc.