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.
Complex: You have a lot of features on the record from a lot of big artists; Akon, Nas, and Rick Ross are all on there. How did you secure that many dope features on a mixtape?
Game: I just sort of reached out and asked for mixtape verses and hooks, and people got back to me quick. I’m not a new cat, so you know I’m well-respected. And I have a lot of camaraderie with a lot of these artists, at least a lot of the good ones and some of the fresh ones. It’s like when I reached out for the “One Blood” remix, you know everybody was getting back to me.
Complex: And as far as the songs themselves, are there songs that you recorded for The R.E.D. Album and then decided, “Oh, I’ll just put this on a mixtape”?
Game: Nah, all of these songs are fresh. Everything that you hear me saying is like brand-new. I didn’t take anything old, or anything that was for anything else and put it on this tape. I just went in for about a week straight and recorded a bunch of new stuff. There might be two songs that I had, that I never put out that. I think I went in and finished them and sort of put them on the tape as bonuses.
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?
Game: I think I should stop saying when the album is gonna be released and just say “when it’s released, just pick it up,” man. And I think that no matter how long people wait, we’re not gonna get into a Detox situation and wait over 10 years for that. Whenever my album drops, people gonna appreciate it being pushed back as far as it’s been pushed back. Interscope be having different agendas and they want you to do the shit right. And I think people just need to understand that it’s not the artist, it has a lot to do with shipping, packaging, and getting artists the greatest look that they can get.
August 24th was real realistic to me until I started touring. Before I get really locked into it, when I get home on the 8th man…you know, it might still be the 24th once I talk to Jimmy Iovine. He’s overseas and he gets back when I get back so I’ma sit down with him and have a meeting and we’ll play everything I got. I think I’m missing my huge single like “My Life,” or “Hate It or Love It,” or “One Blood.” And I think I really need to find that.
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.
Complex: As far as your other songs, you had a lot of singles out. You had “Krazy,” “Shake,” and “It Must Be Me.” Were you not satisfied with…
Game: No, no. It was Pharrell’s idea to just throw a bunch of songs out. You know I’m saying like, we threw a bunch of shit out just to you know test the waters. That’s it, man.
Complex: So, will those songs still make the album?
Game: No.
Complex: They’ve been cut from the album?
Game: No, “Krazy,” and I think something else, those were for iTunes. Interscope doing a few things where you give songs to iTunes just to let the fans have them earlier and you charge them $.49 for ’em, and that’s what those were. We haven’t put out any real singles yet. The only thing that was on the album that got put out was the Justin Timberlake record, but that was never supposed to be the first single or anything. That was like a good, last, third or fourth single, but it leaked. The label liked it, radio liked it, so they started spinning it. Then another joint leaked, my joint with Robin Thicke and T.I.. When those joints leaked, man, you just gotta let ’em do what they do. Talk about ’em, push them as much as you can, ’cause they might blow—and if they don’t, then it was just a leak. But every time a song leaked I gotta go back in and really give it all I got. I really wish that Robin Thicke and T.I. joint didn’t leak, though, ’cause that was one of my favorite songs on the album.
Complex: We saw some screenshots of “Ain’t No Doubt About It” a while ago. Will the video be released anytime soon?
Game: Man, I don’t know. We shot a video for it; it might be released and it might not. And if it does get released, it might be released after whatever the first or second single is. Just for online purposes only.
Complex: What is Pharrell’s contribution on the record now? Is he still the executive producer?
Game: Yeah, Pharrell’s the executive producer—probably for every album for the rest of my life. We created sort of a bond and a brotherhood, man, being in the studio for so long together. Now we just call each other every day, talking about music. And that’s sort of how it is with Busta Rhymes and Cool & Dre, other cats that I’ve talked to on the daily man, just about life.
Complex: Is that why you got that Star Trak tattoo?
Game: I got a Star Trak tattoo cause Pharrell helped me out a great deal with this album, and I felt camaraderie and loyalty—plus I don’t give a fuck about what I write on myself. I got stars and shit on my face, tats all over my neck. It doesn’t really make sense, man, but I’m from Compton, who gives a fuck?
Complex: But you’ve had bad luck with the tattoos in the past. You had that G-Unit tattoo and then you got the G-Unot tattoo. You’re not worried about like if you guys don’t stay cool with each other, or he decides to retire, or whatever else might happen?
Game: I mean, if Pharrell decides to retire, what does that have to do with an inch-and-a-half-long tattoo on my arm? It ain’t like I’m walking down the street every day with a magnifying glass on and it streams on YouTube every single day for somebody to be worried about my arm, man. If you paying too much attention to my tattoos every single day of your life, then you doing something wrong.
Complex: We had actually heard a version of the album and we did a write-up on it. Is that the same version of the album or are you gonna start re-arranging the tracks?
Game: If you heard any version of my album, then it can’t be nowhere near the same tracklist or even songs, it keeps changing. The more time they give me to record, the crazier I’m gonna make it and the better the songs are gonna fit with the other songs. Yeah, man, it’s definitely not the way you heard it. If you haven’t heard it yesterday, it’s definitely not the way you heard it.
