No one said it was easy being a gangster. Just ask Jayceon “Game” Taylor. Ever since his debut, it seems like the California rapper has constantly been involved in some kind of beef, controversy, or general fuckery. As of late, though, it’s been quite the opposite. Game swears he won’t dis anyone on his upcoming, oft-delayed The R.E.D. Album. He’s made amends with his old label, Aftermath, as well as his old mentor,Dr. Dre. He’s even made some new friends by entering a partnership with Pharrell. And although he still gets pulled into the gutter on occasion (like when someone recently threw beer at him and his kids) he’s been level-headed enough to steer clear. The new and improved Game might actually be older, wiser, and more mature…but there’s a problem. His music isn’t connecting.
A slew of new material has been released or leaked this year, but whether it be the Justin Timberlake-assisted “Ain’t No Doubt About It” or the Robin Thicke collaboration “Pushin’ It,” none of the songs have managed to chart. With his new mixtape, Brake Lights, currently lighting up the Internet and The R.E.D. Album still without a firm release date, we got on the horn with Game to talk about when his album will actually come out, what it’ll take for him to kill you, and why he’s still just one hit away.
Interview by Insanul “Incilin” Ahmed
Complex: Brake Lights came out this week. All the songs are produced by Cool & Dre. How did you get them to give you such a big batch of beats for free?
Game: Basically Cool & Dre, those are like my brothers. We been getting down since The Documentary. For some reason, they always come through with the good joints that put my album where it needs to be right at the end, like “My Life,” “Hate It or Love It,” and “Big Dreams.” So when it came to the mixtape, we were working on a song for my album that I did with Drake. And then they were like, “You should do a mixtape and let us do all the beats.” They was like, “We’ll give you as many as we can. We’re gonna make ’em all fresh and give ’em to you. You kill ’em and let Skee host it.” And I think it would happen, you know what I’m saying? I’ve never dropped a tape that’s all original beats.
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Complex: So as far as The R.E.D. Album, you’ve had a lot of pushbacks. Is the August 24th release date definitely going to happen?
...I swear on my kids that this is the most incredible album that I’ve ever done in my life. If I’m lying man, may God take them away and I never see them again. You know I got everything from Dr. Dre on this album. Not just the beats—he’s on the album vocally. And as far as the new hip-hop is concerned, I got the biggest kid in hip-hop on this album, which is Drake, on a really great Cool & Dre track. I got Just Blaze, Swizz Beats, Kanye, all these dope producers on this album; this album is so classic that I don’t wanna throw it away.
My last album did like 270,000 the first week and it really had no buzz and it wasn’t pushed and we just threw it out. And “My Life” is what carried it over to platinum. I don’t want that to happen with this album. I think that if I threw my album out tomorrow, I got 300,000 fans that’ll go get my album first week. And that’s not shabby during this day and age. But I really wanna push for gold and try to top The Documentary’s numbers.
But I don’t think I can do that without a huge radio record. And I don’t want it to be so radio that it’s not street. Like I’m looking for a cross between “One Blood” and “Hate It or Love It.” And I think that it wouldn’t be successful or right for me if I put my album out before that. I’d be cheating myself and cheating my fans. So when I get back, I’ll have a meeting with the label and we’ll see what they say. I had a meeting with Steve Berman, the man under Jimmy Iovine, before I left, at a restaurant in Beverly Hills. He assured me that the label would not drop the ball with this album. They just want a hit record. Not saying that I don’t have one, but I wanna go in and play everything I got. ’Cause if I get a huge record out I’ll fuck around and get Lil Weezy the first week.
Read the Rest of the Interview here
