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The Game

Brake Lights
(Free Download)

myspace.com/thegame

In this day and age, mixtapes get dropped left, right and centre. Every day some rapper from the back-end of nowhere throws another diamond-encrusted photoshopped digital mixtape on the blogs trying to make a name for himself to follow in the footsteps of Fiddy. As a result, mixtapes have become fairly pointless for the most part, but when someone like The Game drops one, clearly it’s worth a listen. Brake Lights has been put out for free online to get the hype machine going for the release of the upcoming full-length The R.E.D. Album and if this is anything to go by, his fourth album is going to be huge.

The Game is a great rapper, but has often found himself come under criticism for changing his style up too often to fit the guest rapper and simply name-checking famous rappers every other line. This mixtape is sure to put an end to all that as Jayceon Taylor goes in hard from the very start, with the opening track bombing in following an intro from Busta and breezing into a track featuring Snoop on the guest spot on Trading Places. With Snoop going in with more pronounced energy than his typically laid-back style, it’s a mixtape that feels a lot more like an album proper, which says a lot about the quality on show.

Production from Cool & Dre is more or less always a gold star award and their heavy drums over suitably large vocal samples prove to be the perfect backdrop to the vocals. Cold Blood has Game rapping about the perils of being either a Crip or a Blood, Ecstacy shows their understated side and Street Riders, which features Nas and a somehow not-at-all-annoying sung chorus by Akon gives Game the chance to be the G that we all know he is, on a track that apparently was originally a diss against Pharrell and 50 Cent.

There are times when the production seems to be the total opposite of what Game would normally rap over, such as the folk-sampling You Are The Blood and the standout track on the album Hustlin’ [Champions’ Anthem] but that shows that he’s certainly matured and gained a versatility he hasn’t shown in his previous releases. In short, The Game has released a free mixtape that stands alongside his studio albums, if not edges past them – get involved in this by grabbing the mixtape from here.

Abjekt

You can stream or download Hustlin‘ below. Schweet.

The Game – Hustlin’ (Champions Anthem) by Crossfire Music