Rolling Stone Talks 2 The Game Brother G-Ride & Phat !!

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Staying in Compton

Gunplay at Game Compound

Drive-by shooting as rapper celebrates Number One debut



At around 11 p.m. on Monday, January 24th, as rapper the Game was leaving his home in Compton, California, gunmen opened fire on him and about thirty friends who were gathered outside.
The Game, 25, and his crew, Black Wall Street, were on their way to a party at the Hollywood nightclub Forbidden City to celebrate the release of his debut album, The Documentary; the record came out six days earlier and sold nearly 600,000 copies in its first week, opening at Number One on the Billboard charts. According to several witnesses, as an SUV drove by the house, a passenger sprayed the group with automatic gunfire. No one was injured, but "gunfire was returned," according to Roderick Johnson, a.k.a. Phat Rat, who handles BWS business. Johnson says that two other cars drove by minutes later and shot at the house, shattering windows on the Game's black Range Rover, which was parked in the driveway.

The Game owns several houses on the dead-end block of the rough Compton neighborhood where the shootings happened; he uses the property both as living space and business headquarters.

No suspects have been identified. BWS members speculate that the shooters may have been local kids trying to build street cred. "It's not gang-related," says G-Ride, another BWS member. "It's just stupidity-related. Everyone blows a shooting out of proportion. It's everyday life here. You hear shots, and you just cover your head."

Adds D-Mac, one of the label's managers, "When someone comes from the hood and is successful in the rap business, there will always be jealous or envious people around, people trying to make Game resort to something that he doesn't want to do again."

The Game, whose real name is Jayceon Taylor, has been a member of the Cedar Block Pirus, from the South Central Los Angeles Blood gang, since high school. The Game still wears -- and raps about wearing -- Blood colors. In 2001, he was shot in the home where he sold drugs; when he awoke from a two-day coma in a Los Angeles hospital, he dedicated himself to rap music. Dr. Dre signed him to his Aftermath label in 2003, hooked him up with 50 Cent's G Unit and produced The Documentary. The album refers frequently to drug dealing and gang violence but also to the pain and loss caused by street crime.

Three days before the shootout, on January 21st, the Game was involved in another violent incident when he and his manager, Jimmy "The Henchman" Rosemond, were guests on a Washington, D.C.-area radio station, WKYS. Reportedly, the DJ, Zxulu "The Big-Lip Bandit," made disparaging on-air comments about Rosemond's cell-phone headset. Minutes after the show, according to a report filed with Prince County police, two men were beaten in the lobby of the radio station; one, sources say, was Zxulu.

No charges have been filed, and the Game has said he was not involved. "Everywhere we go, there's people hanging around," says Johnson. "That was some guy packing on with us."

On January 25th, WKYS's parent company, Radio One, instructed its sixty-nine urban stations to stop playing the Game's new single, "How We Do," then Number Five on the Billboard Hot 100.

Meanwhile, the Game is busy promoting his album with club dates and an upcoming European tour. Johnson says the rapper rarely travels alone or without heavily armed security. "We know history," he says. "We look at Biggie, at Tupac. We aren't going to let nobody get so close to our man."

Johnson says that BWS's long-term goal is to stop violence and improve the quality of life in Compton; Johnson himself directed a well-regarded truancy program in San Francisco in the late Nineties. He says that BWS will set aside income from sales of The Documentary to provide seed money for local businesses. "Game is going to let all these hardheads know the real," says Johnson. "And he'll put the resources behind his word."

G-Ride, twice convicted on car-theft charges, says that BWS looks to hire former felons. "They've been to prison and don't want to go back," he says. And, he adds, BWS won't be swayed from its mission. "My mom has lived in Compton for sixty years," he says. "You feel me? I know we're supposed to take the money and run, but we ain't going no place."

Source: The Black Wall Street

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Rolling Stone