If Fahrenheit 9/11’s and Super Size Me’s box office numbers didn’t prove evidence enough, the recent Sundance Festival should convince you – documentaries are a hot commodity. And amid the non-fiction hullabaloo arrives The Documentary, the sizzling hot hip-hop debut from Dre’s latest discovery, The Game.
Unfortunately, The Game’s depiction of thug life stands up to scrutinous fact-checking no more than your average Stephen Glass color piece or Michael Moore agitprop. Aftermath Records? There is a Fabulist among you. Consider the facts:
Fabrication: On his rap song “Dreams,” The Game asserts “They say sleep is the cousin of death…”
Fact: Virgil considers death the “brother to sleep,” (“consanguineus Leti Sopor”) (VI.18). Cf. Heine’s Death, and his Brother Sleep. Brother and cousin represents a material discrepancy.
Fabrication: On the track “Hate It or Love It,” The Game declaims “Kill a nigga on my song but really do it/ That’s the true meaning of a ‘ghostwriter.'”
Fact: According to Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary, ghostwriter means “one who writes for and in the name of another” (transitive sense). No proffered definition, contemporary or obsolete, describes “killing niggas.”
Fabrication: On his hot joint “Higher,” The Game boasts “Like Dre did/ I created a buzz without a single…”
Fact: Per hip-hop resource Rolling Stone, “The Documentary” relies upon the “killer single, ‘How We Do,’ an A-list Dre tune that’s piled with hooks.” Rolling Stone is beyond reproach. Obviously.
Fabrication: On “Don’t Need Your Love,” The Game goes so far as to brag, “got all the critics watchin [sic] my pivot/ On my block in the Coupe reading [sic] kites from prison…”
Fact: To document this statement’s countless failings in source materials and matters of fact would require more space than is available. However, let it be said that New York Times critic A.O. Scott, among others, has never acknowledged watching The Game’s pivot, publicly at least. Additionally, kites, whether box, sled, delta, or winged box, are rarely, if ever, allowed in prisons.
Fabrication: According to The Game’s flow on No More Fun & Games, “Not to down Eminem I fuck black bitches, fuck white bitches, nigga I like bitches/ Them half and half Alicia Keys dyke bitches.”
Fact: There is no evidence that Alicia Keys sapphic inclinations represent only half her gender identity. The preponderance of oral history suggests Ms. Keys is entirely a “dyke bitch.”
Fabrication: On his track “Special,” The Game promises, “I’ll take you to New York City, Atlanta too/ Show you how to fly them birds…”
Fact: Thus far, The Game has not taken me to New York or Atlanta, nor has he shown me how to fly any birds. I am, however, available for promised activities – The Game can contact me here. I also like bitches.
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