News

The game strikes out with doctor’s advocate

The hype surrounding Game’s recently released second album Doctor’s Advocate meant it would only be a matter of time before he reached these shores for a show. Game played London about three times while supporting his debut set The Documentary. Much more than the average. Naturally, the Compton rapper always plays in west London. But before the show there was, as usual, business to be taken care of.

On a particularly horrible London morning the usual combination of label reps, press and groupies (both male and female) were in Lilywhites’ Picadilly Circus store to watch Game sign an endorsement deal with sportswear giant Lonsdale. The only time Jayceon Taylor smiled during the proceedings was when the rep from Lonsdale mentioned how much the deal was worth.

“Lonsdale are the biggest sports company in the UK and I’m into big things so we’re doing big business,” Game said an hour or so later at his West End hotel.

DRE

He’s not lying. Doctor’s Advocate has already proved he’s more than capable of achieving success without 50 Cent or West Coast legend Dr Dre, who of course co-signed him when he was a new artist. 50 claimed to have written many of the successful singles from The Documentary like Westside Story and How We Do, meaning he was therefore behind Game’s success. But few believed him. However, many wondered if Game would be the same without those Dr Dre beats. Even though Dre only took care of about four or five tracks on Game’s debut, it seems Game himself wondered what would be. On his new album’s title track he asks: ‘What am I without a Dr Dre track?’ Quite a lot still it would seem.

“I recorded two tracks with Dre but I decided that it was bigger not to put them on rather than have them on my album so I could say that the album was executive produced by me and it didn’t have Dr Dre or 50 Cent or anybody’s bullshit involvement,” he says. “I talked to Dre about the track, and he loved what I did. And not only that but the album. It feels good to succeed on my own man. But basically with me I just go in and record my music, I’m not really concerned or worried about the side antics. It was really a bigger thing for the people and the media than me. I just do what I do.”

Will these songs with Andre Young ever see the light of day?

“I might just give them to you, let you have them and rock with them.”

Okay then. Whether he cares or not, he certainly knows how to work the media and the people for his personal gain. While the hype over first-week sales is undoubtedly hurting hip-hop, Game is one of only a few artists who haven’t suffered because the public just don’t buy records the way they used to. Obviously that success has put him in a position to talk reckless.

“I never really cared about people saying the climate was bad and people not buying records,” Game says with obvious satisfaction. “Nah stop bitching, they’re just not buying your records. Obviously artists like myself, Jay, T.I., Kanye, are doing something right and maybe everyone else needs to fall in line or follow that pattern or get a job elsewhere, this is hip-hop it’s a bloodsport.”

SALES

That said, Game didn’t quite sell a million records during his first week as he predicted. Was he good with 400,000?

“Everybody else was happy so I guess I’m cool. I mean I didn’t do the numbers that I thought I was supposed to do, but I didn’t do the numbers I thought I was supposed to do with the last album either, so you know we’ll keep on working hard and hopefully on the third album we’ll capitalise off everything I’ve been trying to do since the early stages of my career.”

It’s not hard to see why the album is selling. Look no further than the new single Wouldn’t Get Far which has caused some harmless controversy by criticising video girls. Some of those video girls have inevitably caught feelings. “I don’t care about that,” he says of their reaction. “When the video comes out they’ll be in the video, so we’ll see how big their mouths are then.”

But the album gets personal as well. One Night sees Game addressing the situation with his brother Big Fase 100 who very publicly broke ranks with Game during the height of The Documentary’s success.

“Being in the hood and reaching semi-success, it was a situation where half of my homeys rolled with me and then the other half turned their back. It happens to all of us whether it be someone you came up with, or y’all was just tight. As soon as you do something he thought he could do better than you, instead of supporting you he kinda has all this hate and envy inside of him. So then you gotta gracefully bow out of that friendship, that relationship. I just put it on a beat. Everybody goes through that at least once in their life.”

Other big tunes on the album include Ol’ English, Compton, Why You Hate The Game featuring Nas and Marsha from Floetry. Of course One Blood was one of the biggest songs of last year. In addition to all that, before too long Game will be known as a producer as well as a rapper. After watching Dr Dre for nearly five years he feels like he’s learnt the ropes and is ready to add another string to his bow.

“I’ma let some beats go as early as this spring,” he informs. “I’m recording with some of hip-hop’s biggest artists and its kinda dope to step out of the booth and into the production side. I got beats man.”

So who is he working with?

“ I aint gonna say. You gonna see when you hear that beat.”

• Doctor’s Advocate is out now

Published: 04 January 2007
Issue: 1250

site comments powered by Disqus