Jayceon Terrell Taylor better known by his stage name “Game” and formerly “The Game”, (he dropped the “the” for some reason), brought himself and his expected entourage to the Olympia on Sunday night the 20th of November. 

Game has gone off the musical beaten track so to speak with his songs receiving less and less radio airplay probably due in part to his profane lyrics and the monotonous sampling of machine gun fire.
He still however maintains a strong following in Ireland although it may be becoming a cult one with each passing album. 

The Olympia was jammed with wannabe gangsters but not filled to capacity with Game putting on an energetic show full of the stereotypical elements found at a rap concert. There were baseball caps everywhere, hands going up and down and side to side as people wondered how you dance to rap.

Game really worked up a great atmosphere and the Olympia definitely suits his style and sound, this more intimate of venues makes you feel so close to the performer. One of Game’s strong points is his interaction with the crowd whether it is his requesting of the crowd to talk down 50 Cent’s rap group G-Unit who he infamously had a feud with, or getting the masses to shout his name after he precedes it with the word “money”.

It wouldn’t be a rap concert without the obligatory ego massaging from the protagonist. This cocky rap star really does seem to appreciate his audience however as he even invited them on stage to dance while he spat the lyrics. 

His chemistry with the crowd is unique compared to other artists and rappers who couldn’t care less about the ticket buying minions, but despite this Game has several flaws. After the success of his first album The Documentary, Game never really followed up with a equalizing or better effort with his other albums.

He relies a lot on the production to make up for his lacklustre lyrics which produce such idiotic genius like “I was sucking that pussy like it was won ton soup”. Hearing him mention Dr. Dre on nearly every song gets repetitive as you wonder if the man needs locking up for audio stalking.

His set list doesn’t hold up to other artists and the frustrating aspect of this concert and rap concerts in general is that a DJ supplies the music, often cutting off a song before it reaches the second verse. This means you are lucky to hear one song in its entirety. Due to Game’s inconsistency with his albums this partially proved to be a good thing with weaker tracks not getting as much airplay.

Game has good tracks like How We Do and Hate It or Love It with catchy choruses and hooks, and this combined with his hard working and energetic style create fantastic atmospheric entertainment, but his average musical library and lack of originality means that this concert was memorable, but not for artistic merit.

Seamus Dunne