Album Review
The Game - The Documentary
Documenting the Pluses and Minuses
by: Char-Lee Jackson, for Entertainment
Let’s
do something different, here. Let’s play Pros and Cons.
The Documentary Pros
1) Beats... Umm, I guess. Don’t get me wrong, they are
pretty good, but just hearing that Dre was supposedly giving
him those Detox beats had me thinking this was gonna be some
lunar eclipse shit. Ehhhh, t’was aiggggght. It’s
good to see Hi-Tek is living and still putting out heat.
2) Blatant attacks. Listening to this dude is like watching
Paul Mooney give out his Coon Award; you’re just waiting
to hear who he airs out next, and hopefully it’s not your
favorite rapper. But, I’ve got a question, how is Game
gonna take a shot at Jay then follow it up by saying he wouldn’t
take a shot at Jay? You just did, dude. Another question, was
that a shot at T.I.?
3) Nate Dogg. This dude gets it done in regulation, every damn
time. Those hooks just make you feel good. That harmony be as
good as moms poundcake... ehhhh, anyone?
4) 50's & Em's appearances. These pushed his Game?... to
a Higher?... plateau. But really, they made him step it up.
He held his own with 50, but after the first verse of the Eminem
joint, which was sub par, I thought he was toast. He even threw
in the disclaimer about getting "killed on his own shit,"
but he damn near outshady'd slim, himself on that last verse.
He absolutely killed it.
5) Not much filler. I can’t say I will listen to this
album all the way through on the regular, but at least it’s
consistent. No dumb interludes and instead of Buck, we got Yayo
(who is undoubtedly the G-Unit adrenaline man). Oh yeah, he
didn’t try to put any of his wack homies on either. Oh
yeah, that timeline verse where he throws in KG was excellent.
I almost forgot that Good Game.
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The Documentary Cons
1) Air Nikes... Game has officially replaced Cormega as the
Nike spokesman (FYI, Mega's preference was the Air Max)
2) Dead rapper props. The dedication to the Williams sister’s-sister
was nice, but she ain’t a rapper. Pac & Big get too
much run, here. Eazy too. He even says something about baby
Pun or something. As a matter of fact, rappers period. I understand
he’s appreciative of Dre, but he dropped the guy’s
name, like, 37 times. I lost count. Somebody needs to tell him
he's doing 4 much (west-coast slang, people).
3) Not quite as lyrical as I thought it would be. I wasn’t
expecting him to be Ras Kass, but Yuckmouth wasn’t lying
when he said this dude got a Yonkers flow. He spits like mix-tape
MC's, which I like, in increments, but not for a whole album.
I’m not even saying he does that, because he doesn’t,
but I didn’t expect it to be this much of it. I expected
more stories, you know like that classic formula that made mid
90’s west-coast albums great?
4) Flow. It’s decent, but I could kind of see this coming
after the New Edition, Hot 2Nite remix. It leaves something
to be desired like a slice with no parmesan or garlic, you know?
Over the right beat he can murder a track. He absolutely killed
the Who Shot Ya, beat a couple years ago (top 2 on
that beat, only behind Biggie… find it), but sometimes
the beat outdoes him and he's left behind trying to pull up
his khakis and catch up at the same time. It’s like he
tries to get too much done in his bars when another MC would
shave a couple words off to make it flow better.
5) He mentions those shoes and rappers a lot. I know I already
said it, but he already said it too. This is my well placed
irony for the day...
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In conclusion, this album was pretty good, not great but pretty
good. I don’t want to make it sound sub par by saying
that, but I dunno, sometimes I expect more out of certain people
based on their past work and with who is overseeing the project.
That’s a compliment coming for me, especially on an unproven
rookie. When I heard Game’s features the last year or
so, I thought he really was going to make this a great west-coast
album in the vein of N.W.A.’s masterpiece Efil4zaggiN
or Above the Law’ classic Uncle Sam’s Curse.
What I had to bring myself to understand though is those albums
were a lot more political than people gave them credit for and
today’s young crop of MC’s aren’t as dedicated
to taking that chance. What sounded like a bunch of ignorant
Negroes just yelling on wax was just brutal social and political
commentary without any inhibitions of being radio friendly or
selling a certain amount of units. Game’s album, although
produced with a west-coast sound, is more geared towards an
east-coast audience. Sure, the singles will be played on both
coasts and in between with regularity, but will west-coast purists
really get what they were and I was expecting, here? Maybe,
maybe not, but if they just wanted some shine back on their
coast, they’re definitely happy, because unless you’ve
been hiding under a rock for the past few months you’ve
figured out it’s Game time in every time zone.
