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By Niggins

It feels like just yesteryear (in 2008) when LAX dropped, and “The Game” was ready to leave the rap — errm — industry for good to spend time with his kids and the “more important things”..

(Game with his youngest son at a L.A. Angels baseball game)

Evdently, the Bloods are like “family time” for The Game

Less than a year later, Game told MTV that he was working on a new LP, called The R.E.D. Album. All of his fans sighed with relief, and before you knew it, pictures, songs, and dates began to shoot out of everywhere.

http://twitpic.com/k21vb (October 2009, Snoop, Dre. Dre and Game)

Downright, the worst thing about this roller-coaster ride called R.E.D. Album is definitely the delays in the release dates. Let’s go to the beginning… The first date for the album to be released was on December 1, of ‘09. Then the album was pushed to December 8. THEN December 15… Later it was announced that the date would also be pushed back until February 16, 2010 due to Dr. Dre needing more time to finish production for the album. After hearing this, most people thought this was a pretty significant push back, and seemed like a good enough window to finish this album. But sadly, not. The next date to be coughed out was June 15, 2010. That wasn’t even enough time… That was delayed to June 29. Of course that wasn’t the official release date either. July 6, 2010 was the next date, but Game himself explain that he wanted to release the album on August 24, 2010 to dedicate it to Los Angeles Lakers player Kobe Bryant. He stated that he chose August 24 because he got caught up in the 2010 NBA Finals frenzy and was inspired by his home team hero Kobe Bryant, but later that date was delayed until unknown. Today, there is still no official release date.

Although there has been almost 10 delays on the release of the LP, Game has not been just sitting around and working whenever he wants. He seriously has been putting out music, compensating for the lack of his never-ending-amount-of-delays album.

The first to drop, was The Red Room, a mixtape hosted by DJ Skee at the end of April 2010. Which is pretty awesome actually, because it was originally supposed to be hosted by DJ Drama and have it as a part of his Gangster Grillz series, but Drama heard the recently released ‘400 Bars’ and the few low quiet disses peppered in the track towards other rappers, so Drama opt out of the DJ position not looking for trouble with any rappers. Now with no DJ Drama, we’ll be able to listen to the songs without Dram’ yelling for the first 33 seconds of the track. Plus DJ Skee (the replacement for Drama) added bonus song at the end for people who don’t like the 400 bars over 1 beat, called the ‘400 Bars (Skeemix)’, which changes the beat a bunch of times for people who find the same beat for 20 minutes boring.

Even though it wasn’t Gangsta Grillz approved, the 21 song mixtape was nothing to look away from. He goes over a lot of popular beats (like Beamer Benz Or Bentley and Drop The World to name a couple…) and rips it with his Black Wall Street members: Menace, XO, Mysonne, Kanary Diamonds and Juice on a load of songs.

Although he claims that he’s done with menages, there are only 2 jams with JUST Game, the rest have features, but these features aren’t just anybody. Lil’ Wayne, Fabolous, Diddy(http://rapgenius.com/artists/diddy-dirty-money), Nippsey Hussle and Busta Rhymes are just some of the people on this mixtape, but even with this kind of lineup, ‘400 Bars’ has been known as the highlight of the mixtape itself.

Around comes August, and Game hits his fans with another tape…

Hosted by DJ Skee again, Brake Lights dropped as an ‘appetizer’ for the R.E.D. Album. Game explained in an interview with XXL magazine:

“I know a lot of people been waiting on R.E.D., so I wanted to put
Out something to hold my them over, while I finish up my album.”

There’s something you will notice if you’ve never listened this mixtape before. Game has been known to adore Ciroc, and you know he’s been drinking a lot because his voice is intensely raspy and coarse in all his raps. This is definitely a different kind of mixtape… Game uses strange beats/instrumentals. There are a few songs that sound like he collab’d with the band Muse or Radiohead, but I’m not sure. I believe it’s a great mixtape though. it’s very different then most mixtapes out today. It goes hard, then soft, then real gangster, then real life situations and how hard it is to grow up in Compton… Great mixtape overall. Not too many features, and a lot of real lyrics.

Then out of no where, without warning, Game drops a mixtape called Purp & Patron

(released January 24th, 2011)

Not a big surprise as DJ Skee hosts another Game mixtape, which I’m beginning to really like, because he doesn’t yell or drop 20 DJ drops and have annoying rewinds. These songs are virtually untouched… Gotta love it.

This mixtape is REAL big. It has 29 tracks (double disc mixtape) and the perfect balance of Game. In some songs, it’ll be serious and have a great Cool & Dre produced beat (The specific song I’m talking about is ‘The Kill’), and then he’ll put on a British accent and mimic a Slick Rick flow… Not too many features but when he does have a feature you’ll be happy. People like Lil’ Wayne, Pharrell, Wiz Khalifa, T-Pain, Rick Ross, KRS-ONE and even Doug E. Fresh can be found in the mixtape. This tape is so good… and I mean really good. I would urge Game to get Purp & Patron to go retail and sell physical copies with a couple extra songs. I know I’d cop it. No questions asked.

Amazingly, the DAY Purp & Patron was put out, there was a song released, called ‘White Soft Porn (Feat. Tyga & Asher Roth)’. It had a lot of people looking for the source of the track because it wasn’t on Purp & Patron… Later, a cover was found.

Game was going to release another mixtape called Purp & Patron: The Hangover within’ one week. Amazingly he was right, and the mixtape was dropped 7 days after Purp & Patron. The mixtape was obviously not 30 tracks like the one before, but it was instead the leftovers of the original Purp & Patron mixtape. 15 new tracks. That’s 44 Game tracks in one week. I think he’s going in the right direction to make up for the delayed R.E.D. Album…

I understand why these songs were cut from Purp & Patron though.. There are a couple tracks that make you itch your head. None the less, it’s a mixtape. Better then nothing.

What now? Well thankfully Game released the first official single to The R.E.D. Album. ‘Red Nation’ featuring Lil Wayne is a long awaited single. At this point, it seems anything that has to do with Game’s 4th LP is going to be accepted and loved. Even if it’s hated.

He’s also got a single — “Only One” featuring Chris Brown — that is full of contradictions.

Clearly, this is a man who is comfortable with the mixtape as a medium, and equally uncomfortable with the album

Game has gone from good, to better, to best with his mixtapes. I believe this is going to be worth the wait. I believe that if we stay patient, that it’ll easily do over 100k (maybe even more) in it’s first week, and that’s even if it gets leaked early. One thing is for sure. When that album drops, it’s going to be the best of the best of everything he’s made since LAX. That’s the best of the best since LAX (3 years ago.) His first 3 albums were produced, recorded and released WITHIN 3 years. Can you imagine what this album is going to sound like? I think it’s going to be worth the wait. I trust Game thinks that too.

UPDATE: On March 21, Game announced that he’s aiming for the end of the summer.