Track List:
01 - Intro
02 - Westside Story (Feat. 50 Cent)
03 - Dreams
04 - Hate It Or Love It (Feat. 50 Cent)
05 - Higher
06 - How We Do (Feat. 50 Cent)
07 - Don't Need Your Love (Feat. Faith Evans)
08 - Church For Thugs
09 - Put You On The Game
10 - Start From Scratch (Feat. Marsha Of Floetry)
11 - The Documentary
12 - Runnin' (Feat. Tony Yayo)
13 - No More Fun And Games
14 - We Ain't (Feat. Eminem)
15 - Where I'm From (Feat. Nate Dogg)
16 - Special (Feat. Nate Dogg)
17 - Don't Worry (Feat. Mary J. Blige)
18 - Like Father, Like Son (Feat. Busta Rhymes)
The Game is easily the most anticipated new act since 50 Cent back in 2003. Coming up in much the same way through the mixtape circuit and having the same ever popular history of getting shot and selling drugs it is no surprise that he was incorporated into G-Unit with 50 for his first release. Unlike 50 though, The Game is not from New York, he hails from Compton, famous as the birthplace of Gangsta rap in the early 1990's. The west has been a little quiet in mainstream hip-hop in the last few years with only old favourites like Dr. Dre and Snoop releasing anything with chart success and even Dre has been absent from the charts for a while, so maybe this is why "The Documentary" was so highly anticipated.
Although The Game has been signed to Aftermath for around two years, this is remarkably his first official release on the label. What makes Game's story even more remarkable is the fact that he has only been rapping for little over two years. He decided to rap after he got shot and was lying in hospital. It was only a few months later that Dr. Dre signed him to Aftermath.
There has been no shortage of promotion for Game and "The Documentary" what with big hits on mixtapes like "200 Bars and Running" "New York, New York" and "Still Cruisin'" and fairly well publicised beefs with Joe Budden, Memphis Bleek and Yukmouth so regardless of how good the album is, it was bound to sell, but what people really want to know is will it be a classic and will it bring back the west?
The album opens with "Westside Story", which is very reminiscent of "Still Dre" with a typical Dre beat and Scott Storch's simplistic keyboarding, which could easily be as much of a street anthem as "Still Dre" with its west coast sound. This is then followed by "Dreams" which is another example of how Kanye West's soul sampling production still isn't getting tired out. Game fits the track really well, recalling his dreams of making it in the rap game. My main criticism of this track is that it is one of the best examples of the main flaw in "The Documentary". It's lyrics are mainly about name dropping other people and making comparisons against other rappers/artists and albums. This trend is present in a lot of other tracks, but stands out the most in this one.
50 Cent appears on a number of tracks on this album like "Hate It or Love It" and "How We Do", which all seem like strong candidates to be launched as singles. 50 and Game seem to work together really well; it's just a shame they had to have their beef as it would have been good to hear more music from them in the future. "How We Do" was actually the first single from the album and the amazing fact about it is that it is meant to have Dre's first ever beat from back in 1983 and was also set to be used on Dre's "Detox" album.
Apart from the name dropping, there was very little I was disappointed with on this album, well apart from "We Ain't" featuring Eminem. It's not that it's a bad song, I just expected better from Eminem. Game's verses are decent, but I thought Eminem's verse was pretty weak and he got outshined by Game who only started rapping about 2 years ago. I also thought Eminem sounded a little out of place on the album.
There is another real west coast sounding track on the album called "Where I'm From" featuring Nate Dogg, what Gangsta or rap album for that matter, would be complete without a Nate Dogg hook and luckily "The Documentary" has two of them. "Where I'm From" has a classic sounding Nate Dogg that really suits the track, with Game repping Compton and the West. Despite it being a solid track, the tune doesn't seem to fit the rest of the album. The other Nate track is "Special" which has Game doing a soft track the album could have done without, but I suppose they have to do some tracks to cater for the ladies.
Documentary is easily one of the best albums out so far this year and looks like it still will be at the end of the year. It is a solid debut album for a new artist with unmatched production quality thanks to the all star team of Kanye West, Dr. Dre, Timbaland, Just Blaze and Scott Storch. The album is also helped by the list of big names doing guest appearances like Busta Rhymes, 50 Cent, Mary J. Blige, Eminem etc. As I said, my only main criticism with the album is the continual name dropping and referencing which you really notice when the same people are mentioned in a lot of songs, like Tupac for example. Game spoke out about this in a recent interview and said it was because the album is "documenting" hip-hop, but still, it is over done. The album might not be as big as 50 Cent's debut album, but it is still set to be huge. Speaking of 50 Cent, during their recent beef, 50 claimed he was responsible for writing six of the albums hottest tracks including "Hate it or Love it", "Higher" and "How We Do" so if this is true it will be interesting to see how Game's next album compares to this one now that the two have separated.
Hot Tracks: "Hate it or Love it", "Higher", "How We Do", "Church for Thugs", "Dreams", "No More Fun and Games"
Artist: The Game