The Game

The fifth studio album from Compton-based beef-master the Game, Jesus Piece, is almost a good record. No fewer than 20 guest high profile guests, including Jamie Foxx, Kendrick Lamar and 2 Chainz, appear. Combine those impressive features with some fantastic production and you're almost able to ignore the fact that the Game isn't a very good rapper — almost, but not quite. It's not just that he isn't a technically proficient MC — there are tons of MCs who are successful in spite of not being top-level wordsmiths — it's that he's dull, too. There's nothing on Jesus Piece that demonstrates the Game has evolved over the last decade. Every song has the same basic rhyme scheme and bar structure, delivered in the same flat tone. The massive number of guest stars makes the album listenable, but they also make the Game's shortcomings incredibly obvious. When he's not being technically outshone by Kendrick Lamar or Pusha-T on "See No Evil" and "Name Me King," he's getting overwhelmed by the charisma of 2 Chainz on "Ali Bomaye," or simply playing second fiddle to the production on "Hallelujah." There are some good songs on Jesus Piece, but they're decent in spite of the Game, not because of him.