The Game
“Doctor’s Advocate”
GEFFEN RECORDS
In the crunk-dominated world of mainstream hip-hop, The Game is
making a lot of noise. After sticking it to the South with his
multiplatinum 2005 debut, “The Documentary,” he’s
back with another radio-ready, California-repping monument to Dr.
Dre in “Doctor’s Advocate.”
A lot has changed since his last effort, if you can take your
mind off the unbearable sense of self-worth and amount of
beef-making long enough to notice. The Game has since split from 50
Cent and G-Unit, adding them to his list of rivals, and his rhymes
have forgone a bit of intimidation in favor of some focus and wit.
He still has his lapses, but on some tracks he’s downright
funny. The rest of the rap community seems to think
something’s going on: Despite his multitude of rivalries,
he’s teamed up with Kanye West, Snoop Dogg, Xzibit, Busta
Rhymes, Nate Dogg and Nas, to name a few, in making this
record.
But the real question remains ““ what exactly about The
Game is so interesting to fans and rappers? He’s been shot a
few times, but we’ve been through that tired schtick with 50
Cent. It’s not his voice, which is surprisingly more like the
guy standing behind you in line at the bank than the sleazy,
gun-toting drug dealer sound that made gangsta rap so popular.
It’s not the beats, which on this album range from tired Dr.
Dre impersonations (he didn’t actually produce on this one)
to standard street-sounding subwoofer fare to more funky east coast
sounds. And it’s not his rhyming, which thankfully sheds
light on more than his wealth, but finds itself rather
unfocused.
If none of these, it must be the sum of the parts. That, and the
paucity of inventiveness in rap and West Coast rap in general. The
Game can hearken back to a time crunk-artists have left us all
nostalgic for, incorporate rappers from both coasts in the process,
and make a niche for himself. His sound is a sort of updated
gangsta, which makes a whole lot of sense considering what he
thinks about himself.
Obsessed with his place in the rap lineage, he references Dre in
almost every song on the album, and far more times in the
album’s first single, “It’s OK/One Blood,”
than most could stomach. And this niche isn’t very tough for
him to fill, with Dre all but retired and other West Coast rappers
such as Snoop getting so dancy these days.
Also fortunate for The Game is that when a musician has so many
collaborators, there are bound to be great moments, as there
certainly are in “Doctor’s Advocate.”
On “Wouldn’t Get Far,” The Game and
Kanye’s ode to money-crazed women desperate to appear in rap
videos, the rappers spin tales to the tune of “She’s
video fishin’, behind closed doors / she’ll do whatever
it takes to get to the Grammy awards” over a beat
that’s the happiest thing since Motown.
“Why You Hate The Game?” features the rapper
spitting over subdued disco strings and chimes, dark enough to be
convincingly and interestingly hip-hop. And on the hard-edged
“Compton,” certain to please the base, The Game drops
some above average braggadocio: “Get another job …
hip-hop’s not hiring / I’m the reason Dre feel
comfortable retiring / I just might put out “˜Detox’
myself / smoke so much I should probably detox myself.”
“Detox,” for the record, is Dre’s purported
upcoming masterpiece, the release of which has been frequently
delayed.
Whether or not the torch has been passed, The Game is going to
have to do a lot more than recapitulate the past to live up to
those words.