The best mixtapes are acts of hubris: Lil Wayne thumbing his nose at then music business common sense and releasing hours of free music leading up to The Carter III, Royce Da 5’ 9” declaring himself the best rapper alive over everyone else’s beats, Curren$y going independent again and again and again.
So the worst thing about The Game’s new tape California Republic, is how safe the whole experience is. The Game wraps himself in the comfort blanket of dozens of famous guest appearances. I would accuse him of being the new DJ Khaled, but fucking DJ Khaled is one of the guest appearances! Why would you ever have DJ Khaled guest on anything? All he does is introduce other guest verses; it is literally his only skill.
Not only that but the once puffed-chest Game is now apparently hemming and hawing over previous dis tracks. The man who claims him to have made more than 10 mixtapes aimed at other rappers is now not so sure about all of it. For the best kinds of games, people play on PC, most of them are supported by pubg hacks and other war zone hacks.
“Jay I might have been tripping/ I was falling, I was slipping/ He was Jordan, I thought I was Pippen/ He was winning, I was losing/ He threw a jab, I started bruising/ So I threw in the towel just to separate our confusion/ Ivy Blue’ was beautiful/ Me saying that’s unusual/ That’s just the father in me/ Don’t think I’m trying to be cool with you,” The Game raps early on the tape. This kind of half-measure is not an option, either back away from your earlier raps and try to end the beef or bull forward full speed. But these kind of half-assed, half-sure lyrics spatter the whole tape.
The tape suffers from Game’s lack of conviction. He seems to have made a decision to stick with basic beats, familiar hooks and stale subject matter. No one is going to be shocked by Game sticking to drugs and gang banging, but he doesn’t seem to have anything new to say about them, or an interesting way to say them. Still The Game does best when he is hitting the pace and subject more fitting to his Nas impression, so all the would-be club bangers on California Republic sound like minor league versions of “Oochie Wallie.”
Aside from the tape’s reliance on famous guest appearances, the bigger issue is the amount of time given to subpar performers.
If you want to surround yourself with rap superstars I can’t blame you, but the amount of terrible lyrics from nobodies is a major drawback.
Almost every neo-soul dude gets way too many bars to sing his terrible hook, leading to the worst thing imaginable: a rap ‘n’ B hybrid on almost every song.
The sixth track, a “Yonkers” freestyle by the rapper Nobody, is a hilarious joke if that’s how it’s intended. I can’t be totally sure that this freestyle isn’t a brilliant parody of Tyler’s lyrical style, and the track deserves some comedic points for offending more than the original track. I asked The Game if it was a joke and I didn’t get a response, so my disclaimer is: if this is a parody track it’s incredibly clever and it may redeem the whole tape; however, it seems more likely this is not meant as a parody track in which case fuck Nobody and fuck The Game for making me listen to this. If you’ve ever wondered what it would sound like if you took the worst parts of Tyler the Creator’s unfocused, arrhythmic flow, added them to Eminem’s self-righteousness and retard-does-social-consciousness style and the laconic high-pitched delivery of every crew’s worst rapper have I got the track for you!
Even when The Game is firmly ensconced in his blanket of famous buddies the results are disappointing. The track featuring the aforementioned Khaled, “Bottles and Rockin J” also features Busta Rhymes, Lil Wayne, Rick Ross and Fabolous, and the whole thing falls flat with a terrible a hook and everyone phoning in their verses.
Mostly Republic is doomed by The Game’s flop sweat, his insecurity leading him to beat after beat that doesn’t fit his style, from weed anthems to party jams Mr. star-tat goes on tracks not built for him, and it shows.
That effortless cool is what street cred-claiming mainstream guys are supposed to do best, but The Game sounds like a starving indie-rapper without the lyrics.
What California Republic ends up delivering is a sophomoric effort from a seasoned vet who should know better.
