I don’t think I am justified in doing this, critiquing an album, one by a US artist at that. But the compulsion came and these days I just follow compulsions whenever they come; compulsions to do a good deed that is. But as I typed the first word I begin to see why I am qualified to review this album. It is hip hop rap music which I have been playing since I was little, I am a recording rap artist and the rapper involved is one of my all-time favorites.
I am reviewing the documentary 2 for the following reasons. The game has been on social media for the better part of this year hyping the album before its release. The rapper decided to challenge the legend that he can’t top his first album “The Documentary”, which I believe is very daring. But my foremost reason for writing this article is majorly to reply his critiques who accuse the game of name calling and recycling of lyrics.
One critique accused The Game of calling his home town Compton too many times on the Album. I have listened to the album several times over and indeed he is right. Others also accuse him of calling too many names of other rappers and public figures in his tracks, and recycling of other rappers older lyrics. I would address these one by one;
- For mentioning Compton too many times would be hard for me to defend the rapper on that cause he indeed call Compton like on an average of 4 times per song. But that got me thinking on the topic that every rapper has a subject matter which they major on. It’s like a professional in life i.e medicine student who chooses a major say between optometry, dentistry, surgery etc rappers always perform best on a certain subject matter. And for the Game he is at his best when he tells us story about his neighbourhood, how he came up and his street credibility. For some reason this seems to be most important to game. And he can’t call the Album the Documentary without talking about the City where it all happened.
- Rap is a form of poetry. It is a musical form of spoken poetry. Why I refer to the poetry analogy is that similes and metaphors are a core feature of poetry and likewise a core feature of rap music. The fact that The Game reverts to those Similies and metaphors more than the average rapper is true but that is one of the hallmarks of the greats. The notorious Big did a lot of name calling and so did Jayz. However I must add that The Game is very good with fusing names into his rhymes to emphasize certain points. Lyrically he does that better than every other rapper out there and it’s something I anticipate when listening to his music.
- Finally there comes the criticism of recycling rhymes. This is a tricky path to walk in because if not properly done it can be called “biting” which is an offence in the rap game. However the Game recycles lines creatively for wordplay and is versatile at it. That itself is obvious in this album and its part of what shows the growth process of how much The Game has grown since 10 years ago when he came up with the original documentary which was a very successful album.
The game put a lot into this album. It is obvious when you play it. And I believe that is the reason it is a double cd album. I am sure it wasn’t the initial plan but the problem of which tracks to be dropped and not must have come up during selection hence the two cds because The Game earlier in the year said he was going for 18 tracks. The first CD is number one on the billboard charts now so let’s anticpate the drop of the disc 2 this weekend before holla. I know it is weird a Nigerian guy writing about an American rapper. But hip hop is universal and in Naija we love The Game. My next piece would be on Naija music. Peace.
