After numerous album delays, The Game (whose real name is Jayceon Terrell Taylor) released his fourth album, R.E.D., since his career launched in 2002.
Since his debut album “The Documentary,” The Game has been reviving the hip-hop scene.
His last two albums –“Doctors Advocate” and “L.A.X” — were solid, but it seemed like he had lost something.
Three years later, The Game is back and is ready to silence his critics.
The Game’s newly recorded album has a collection of strong material that explained to his fans that he had not forgotten where he had come from.
The Game appreciates growing up with gang-bangs and hustlers in Compton, Calif. because it made him into the person he is today.
The first track off of the Dr. Dre Aftermath Records album “The City” featuring Kendrick Lemar gives the listener a taste that The Game is here to stay.
He switches up his rapping style with anger in his deep voice when mentioning the people who doubted him throughout his lifetime.
Along with the rest of the album, The Game dedicates his work to his family, friends as well as his body, mind and soul.
The Game’s style collided perfectly with other hip-hop artists such as Lloyd Banks, Mario, Chris Brown and Nelly Furtado on the R.E.D. album.
The production was created by top-notch producers such as Cool & Dre, DJ Khalil and DJ Premier..
It was surprising to see Dr. Dre not being heavily involved with this project as he was at times in the past.
With that being said, this is the best production on one of The Game’s albums since “The Documentary.” Also, The Game chose great instruments to work with as well.
One thing that The Game still needs to focus on is writing refrains. 50 Cent and The Game beefed a long time ago about this issue.
50 Cent mentioned how The Game cannot write a hook to save his life.
For example, the eighth track, “Ricky,” was more or less a long verse with no hook.
The song was still good, but rappers must learn how to create a refrain or it will be hard to survive in the the hip-hop industry.
Another thing that was bothersome to The Game was dropping names every chance he had.
Not all of the tracks are harsh on The Game’s album, but there is enough content that will make the listener stand up on his or her feet.
He claims for his next album he will not name drop one person but we will have to wait and see if that happens.
According to Hits Daily Double, which builds albums sales chart, said The Game’s album sold 96,460 copies in its first week of release.
The R.E.D. album debuted No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart.
For an album that had been pushed back four or five times you might get nervous about how good the actual content of the songs are.
But in the end, The Game proved his critics wrong.
It is going to be hard to top his debut album, “The Documentary,” but if this is the quality work we receive from him, it will do just fine.
There are a total of 22 songs on the bonus version and 21 songs on the original album of The Game’s R.E.D. work in stores now.
