The Game: Next Steps

The Game is a student of hip-hop—his street reportage chronicles the genre's contours and creators—and the radio didn't have room for all his best work. “Letter to the King” connects the MC's tumultuous life to a larger search for equality; it's a stark contrast to “240 Bars”, an exhaustive and, for its targets, exhausting clinic in rap beef that reaffirms The Game's spot as one of rap's reigning microphone pugilists.