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

Despite predictions of failure due to its lack of a hit single or Dre beats, Doctor's Advocate topped the charts, with more than 350,000 copies sold in its first week. It was vindication for a two-year stretch that saw not only the aforementioned conflicts but also a trio of arrests on criminal charges, including assault and battery, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and possession of a deadly weapon (brass knuckles). Plus, 50 Cent unearthed a 2000 video of Game on a dating show called Change of Heart, in which a potential love interest shoots him down in embarrassing fashion.

Even Game's sometime manager Jimmy "Henchman" Rosemond caught a case, for fucking up a radio DJ who mocked his cellphone headset. Earlier this year, Rosemond was arrested and indicted on charges of cocaine trafficking. At the moment, authorities are exploring his role in the 1994 Quad Studios shooting of Tupac Shakur.

PHOTO BY BRANDON SHOWERS

PHOTO BY BRANDON SHOWERS

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More About

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

Before it's all over we're gonna get a little place out in the country, and I'll raise some vegetables, a couple of chickens ...

The smart money is not on Game retiring to the countryside to frolic with more traditional types of birds and hoes. But Porter Ranch and Glendale — where he lives with his three children and girlfriend — remain worlds apart from Compton, where he stayed until after the success of The Documentary.

By all accounts, he is a doting parent and a regular churchgoer but one unable to completely tame his temper. "There's something about fighting. It's like I'm black Irish." Game laughs. "With hip-hop beef, people take that too personally. It's a competition, like journalism or professional sports. People act like I can't take shots at Jay-Z. Fuck that, hip-hop ain't got no rules."

Those around him insist fatherhood and age have forced maturity. He even stepped in as peacemaker recently during a Twitter squabble between R&B star Chris Brown and Tyler, the Creator (though calling Bay Area cult favorite Lil B the "wackest" rapper ever ruffled feathers.).

"When he was first signed, he was wild and jumpy — always ready to punch someone's lights out," says his cousin Wack Star. "People just look at his [media] persona and don't know that he's a good person. Gangsta rap is his job. They don't see the side that pays for his family and his friends' families to go to Disneyland together."

Game partially attributes R.E.D.'s frequent delays to his paternal obligations. Though he's released nearly 100 songs in 2011 alone, most originate from fitful bursts of creativity and sleepless studio sessions in which he'll record up to 10 songs in a night.

"His vibe reminds me of Tupac when we did 'Definition of a Thug Nigga,' " Warren G says.

Too proud to openly admit it, Game views R.E.D. as a comeback. Though 2008's LAX narrowly missed becoming his third consecutive No. 1 record, Game dismisses it as unfocused. Whereas a track off the album called "Dope Boys" ordered Dre to pick up his phone or else risk home invasion, Dre co–executive produced R.E.D., alongside Pharrell Williams and Mars of 1500 or Nothin'. (When he is asked about how he wrangled Dre, the answer is storklike in its simplicity. Game says one day out of the blue, Dre called him.)

"We've incorporated live instrumentation and greater musicality," Mars says. "There's a superhero song with Tyler, the Creator, a Parliament Funkadelic influence, African drums and, of course, the element of L.A."

Like all major-label rap albums circa 2011, R.E.D. devotes a few too many songs to awkwardly courting the middle school slow-dance demographic. Taylor claims he's no longer writing down lyrics because it impedes him from "saying what I feel." And what he feels remains headline-baiting. On "Martians & Goblins" alone, he antagonizes Rihanna, Lil B, Erykah Badu, LeBron James, Viacom and Spider-Man. To his credit, he remains carnivorous enough to force his guests to go harder, for fear of being outrapped.

Though he's threatened retirement in the past and implies on "Pot of Gold" that he'll call it quits after his next album, Game insists that he's nowhere near finished.

I ask him if it's difficult to stay hungry and relevant when one has six houses.

"It's about appreciating life and people and understanding how things work outside this window."

"But don't you think the most interesting stories inevitably stem from conflict?"

"That's why I stay in conflict. People associate Game with controversy, and they probably always will."

After all, whether fair or foul, controversy will always remain free.