December 13, 2006 @ 10:14 am

EXCLUSIVE: Game Time (Vol. 2)

Peter Relic

VIBE: Doesn’t it seem that beefs are an ingrained part of hip hop that comes from the survival instinct created by life in the ’hood? The Game: Not necessarily. I think that beef has been healthy in hip hop for the duration of hip hop’s existence. I think all the way back to Busy Bee and KRS-One and Kool Moe Dee and LL Cool J and guys like that, I think that beef has been healthy. It was not until the early demises of Tupac Shakur and Christopher Wallace that beef took a turn for the worse, and ever since then it’s left a bad taste in people’s mouths. But take the beef with myself and 50 Cent, or Eminem and Ja Rule: there’s been no casualties with those beefs, so I think beef is healthy as long as it doesn’t turn devastating. I beefed with the top artists in the game and have annihilated the biggest group and now it’s time to get back to making music, and remember what got me here, which is to stay humble, hungry, work hard—that breeds success and classic records. On the verge of this new album, Doctor’s Advocate, I think I’m right back where I want to be, writing and presenting the right message. And when the album drops it’s going to be very, very, very, very monumental, what this album and the last album as a package do to hip hop. There’s a rumor that there are Dre beats on the album, but he’s not credited. The Game: No. False. No Dre beats on the album. No Dre production. No Dre influence. No Dre anything on this album. But there must be substantial material you and Dre created together in the early stages of working on this album. Stuff in the vaults… The Game: Maybe. I’ll leave that for Dre to say. For that interview you get with Dre one day. The thing that bothered me about “Dreams” is that you said, “Martin Luther King had a dream / Left Eye had a dream,” and it sounded like they shared a dream. But Martin Luther King’s dream was not to burn down Andre Rison’s house. The Game: I’m saying that everybody has a dream. Martin Luther King, he’s known for having that big dream. And Left Eye, she had a dream like you have a dream like I have a dream, like my son's going to have a dream. There isn’t a single person living on the planet rock that doesn’t have a dream. So that song was just…I was just using those figures as people to look at because those people all had dreams that were shattered, you know what I’m saying? The message I was trying to get across is that life is short, and it should be taken a little bit more seriously and appreciated because we’re only here for a short time. I mean, a hundred years? That’s bullshit. I’ma talk to God about it later, see if we can work something out, some kind of payment plan. What memories growing up do you associate with the Volume 10 song “PistolGrip-Pump”? The Game: Oh man! “PistolGrip-Pump” is I think one of the most underrated hip hop songs of our time. “PistolGrip-Pump” was serious, man. That was like, Above The Law—raw. Above The Law is underrated. What did Above The Law mean to you? The Game: They were the poor man’s N.W.A. They were products of N.W.A and Eazy, but Above The Law was fucking sick, man. They were crazy! Where are the group names like that these days? Where are the N.W.As and the Public Enemys and the Above The Laws? We come up the dumbest shit now—like the Knockin’ Doorknobs and shit like that. But Above The Law is one of my favorite groups, especially in that class of underrated MCs. Those group names set the stakes very high. They pushed all the chips into the center of the table. The Game: You gotta show up if you have a name like N.W.A. What was working with Hi-Tek like? The Game: I worked with Hi-Tek on both albums and I’m going to work with him on the third, fourth, fifth. I’m pretty sure he’ll still be producing and so we’ll collaborate with some of my artists and his, but working with Hi-Tek is dope because you go in, he makes the beat, you do the rap—and it’s a wrap. That's dope. And you can go eat and go to sleep because it’s never a long produce. Hi-Tek and Dion, who on my last album sang on a track called “Runnin” and on this album sings on a track called “Ol’ English”—both Hi-Tek productions. Tek’s a young humble guy who’s so talented. I don’t even think he knows how talented he is. He’s a dope hip hop friend of mine, one of the best, and an underrated producer. Is the track “Ol’ English” about the malt liquor or is it a metaphor? The Game: It’s about the malt liquor a little bit but it’s also a metaphor. In the grand tradition of malt liquor songs. The Game: Exactly, man. It’s also like…so many dreams deflate within alcohol bottles and people turn for the worse after—becoming alcoholic, driving drunk, killing people. Liquor is just so sentimental, man. Someone dies in the ’hood, and you pour out a little liquor. So that song is about all those things. It’s a great song. It’s a slow, story song, story-line driven. And I start it off with Ice Cube’s line, “Once upon a time in the projects, yo!” It’s like, It’s big, man. It’s going to have a catastrophic effect as far as my album is concerned. It’s song 12 or 13. It’s a feel-good part of the album, everything’s rolling, and then it picks back up with 14, 15. The album is wonderful, but “Ol’ English” is definitely a song that stands out. Let’s talk about Cube. You said in a recent interview that you feel like ’Pac right now, but it seems in some sense you’re where Cube was with 1990’s Amerikkka’s Most Wanted. He was no longer rapping over Dr. Dre productions; he had to stand alone or at least without Dre backing him. Do you see the parallel there? The Game: Oh, I’m definitely Ice Cube when he left N.W.A, man. That's what it is. That's what it feels like, that’s what I tell people all the time. I know the situation enough to claim that position… Cube was really the glue for N.W.A. He was writing a lot of the music and also was the dopest MC in the group. And when he left, man, N.W.A just kind of fell apart. I think Cube and Dre both wanted to leave.… [They] weren't happy with the way Eazy and Jerry [N.W.A’s manager Jerry Heller] were doing business. I wasn’t there. I don't know how it went. But from my analysis I think Dre and Cube probably talked to each other, and I think Cube was… I was more into Cube. Dre was like…wondering how it was going to go and what was his plan, while Cube was like, “Yo I’m getting the fuck out of this shit!” And Cube just left. And then Dre was like, “Yo, the door's open; I’m going to go out that door too.” In terms of historical precedents, there was Bushwick Bill leaving the Geto Boys, who flopped without him. Have you ever met Bushwick Bill? The Game: Never met Bushwick Bill. Big fan of Bushwick Bill. Hell of a little guy. Bushwick Bill? I don't think you’d have Geto Boys without Bushwick Bill. I think Scarface would have blossomed as a solo artist, but it never worked without Bushwick Bill as far as the Geto Boys. You disagree? Then come see me, because Bushwick Bill was definitely the glue in the group. What’s your workout routine right now? The Game: Ten o’clock three-mile run through the neighborhood, then hit the weight pile in the garage and do what we call prison lift. But I don’t have a lot of time to put gas in the car and get it down to the gym and put on my iPod on and set the timer. What I do is just a neighborhood jog and some prison-style weight lifting. But after this album I’ll get with a trainer and start pushing to do the growth for getting ready for album number three. To what do you attribute rising tensions between black and Latino youths in Los Angeles? The Game: I think it’s overrated. I think what it’s based on is the prisons. In the county jail you’re forced to pick sides. You got the Mexican Mafia, then you got the Black crews, so if you’re black in jail and you’re friends with a Mexican guy, you’ve got to kind of roll with your side. It’s fucked up that it has to be like that, but in the streets it’s not really like that. There's a lot of camaraderie, there's a lot of West Coast/Los Angeles pride. In my videos I try to display that. Snoop [does the] same thing. He just did that with his song [“Vato”] with B-Real from Cypress Hill. I think that the black and brown pride is real—not excluding white people—because we all bleed the same blood, one blood, which is the true meaning behind my song. I don’t really see any tension. There's a couple of gangs at it out here, but as a whole man, I think 80 percent would shake hands and give hugs, man, [and] want to live in a safe environment. You get that 20 percent that’s hard-nosed killers, and those guys go at it. But as far as the general population in Los Angeles—I still got my ear to the concrete, I’m not that far gone from my roots—I’d say I’m accurate. On Friday, the Game on Chuck Taylor, the Bloods and the Crips, doughnuts, Harlem (his son and the ’hood), and Ice-T.

January issue of VIBE—featuring The 60 Best Songs of 2006, as well as the Game, Nas, Ciara, Gerald Levert, and the NFL’s Reggie Bush—on sale now.

Article tags: The Game 

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