The Game
The Documentary 2.5
16 October 2015
A week after the release of The Documentary 2, The Game has gone ahead and released a second disc for the album, The Documentary 2.5. For a Game fan like myself, Christmas has come twice. In a somewhat strange marketing strategy, The Game has released these discs as two separate albums, despite together forming one whole project, The Documentary 2. Artists like Tupac have used this strategy before, and the Game himself has claimed to be replicating this strategy. I have a sly suspicion this strategy may have a lot more to do with money rather than simply resonating legends of the past, but anyway, let’s talk about the content of the disc.
This disc is leaps and bounds beyond the first disc both in quality and replay value. The fluidity of this project stood out to me throughout, resulting in a smooth, holistic project with a story to tell, with each song having a strategic placement on the disc. The variety of beats across the album really add to this replay value: with hard-hitting beats such as those on ‘Gang Bang Anyway’, to G-Funk esque beats such as ‘Quik’s Groove’, you never once become urged to skip a track on the project. These beats seem to have greater layering and complexity compared to that of recent bodies of work by the Game. When compared to Blood Moon: Year of the Wolf, his previous mixtape, this disc creates a much more immersive experience. The Game has really stepped up his game, if you pardon the pun.
“The Game has really stepped up his game”
My favourite track on this disc is by far ‘From Adam’; with a painful edge to his voice, my mind automatically jumped back to the brilliant ‘Start From Scratch’ on the original Documentary, a track similarly full of passion and pain in The Game’s voice. This link to the prequel was further repeated on ‘Like Father Like Son 2’, a touch that was fantastic, with Busta Rhymes again providing the hook much like the original, as well as his son adding an extra flavour to the track. This aspect of nostalgia combined with strong features across the disc (particularly Schoolboy Q’s feature), creates a fantastic dimension to the project, a dimension that many of The Game’s previous projects have simply been lacking.
This disc has truly highlighted The Game’s progression as an artist as well as a man. His flow has greatly improved compared to that of the The Documentary; his ability to adjust his flow to the beat of each track, is now truly second to none. In addition, he is addressing a greater range of issues in his personal life; the ‘New York Skit’ was a fantastic testament to this, in which Game address the much-discussed beef between 50 Cent and himself, with a mature mind-set. The big question for me, before listening to this whole project, was whether it could live up to its name, The Documentary 2, with the 2005 Documentary still standing as one of the greatest West Coast albums of all time. It has managed to do exactly this. Although admittedly not a classic, with perhaps one or two songs that the disc could do without, this disc is introspective and passionate; in all honesty, I love it.