My Life - The Game (feat. Lil Wayne)

Anyone who has listened to The Game knows that he is blessed with the pen. This song is the only example one needs of his talent.

The Game eats this mellow beat like it was an N.W.A. track. But the song’s message is what will ring on in your ears long after the music has stopped. He deconstructs the ultra-complicated mind of the paranoid rapper on this track and channels the tragedies of Tupac and The Notorious B.I.G. as evidence he should be paranoid.

Lil’ Wayne asks in the chorus, “Dear Lord, you done took so many of my people but I’m just wonderin’ why/ You haven’t taken my life?” It’s a genuine question for people who have made it out of dangerous areas where the life expectancy of black males drops dramatically, leaving them wondering what they did right to deserve living.

The Game finally gets the message right that so many rappers before him got wrong. The hood is a scary place to be, and getting out just ain’t that simple. The Game drops references to John Lennon leaving The Beatles, Kurt Cobain’s suicide, Kanye’s mother dying, and his father’s heroin use—in one verse!

You could put this song out a capella and it would still sell, but the production is solid and Weezy does his thang on the synthesized hook. The Game is the West Coast’s savior, and with songs like “My Life,” he seems to be the most talented rapper on the planet.