Dre's coloring Detox with shades Of R.E.D., says Game

Game started his first session for The R.E.D. Album in late 2008, with plans for Pharrell Williams to executive produce and, of course, be one of the few track masters to provide beats. After several months and close to a dozen tracks in with Skateboard P, the Cali rhyme slinger got the call from Dr. Dre to come in and resume work on Detox, a project Game says he has worked on with his mentor on and off for the entirety of his eight-year professional career.

That’s when the Doc inspired a different feel to The R.E.D. Album. “Dr. Dre. came in and said, ‘This is The R.E.D. Album? Cool. But you need this, this, and this and that,’ ” Game says of the shift in his focus. “I was like, ‘Well, where am I gonna get this, this, this and that?’ He was like, ‘We here, ain’t we?’

“We started working on The R.E.D. Album, and some of the songs we did for The R.E.D. Album he snatched for Detox. Then we worked on some more, and he gave me more for R.E.D. At that time, I was probably the happiest I was in my career. Back working with Dre. Working really closely. Our relationship has always been real easygoing, man. Especially when it comes to the music.”

Despite providing heavy input on R.E.D., Dr. Dre and Pharrell have just one song each on the LP that they produced. Most of the tracks were helmed by La Mar “Mars” Edwards, from the collective of musicians and producers 1500OrNothin. “We’ve been working on The R.E.D. Album for two, three years,” says Mars, who also wound up being a co–executive producer on the album. “He still has half of the album he has from two years ago. That goes to show you how artistic he is and how he knows what he wants. It was just fun. It was just fun records.

Us doing those fun songs was cool because he didn’t have them. Then we had to get back to the core of who Game is and why people bought [his] albums, Doctor’s Advocate and The Documentary. The whole project was between gettin’ it done and taking it back to whoever.”

In total, Game recorded more than 100 songs for his new album. He worked with everyone from the YMCMB family to T.I. to Yelawolf to a woman he used to lyrically terrorize during his stint as a member of G-Unit, Ashanti. Most of the records, obviously, didn’t make the cut. Songs like the Pharrell Williams–produced “Ain’t No Doubt About It,” featuring Justin Timberlake, hit the Internet unsanctioned, while Game himself leaked a myriad of others, like the Dre-produced and Ashanti-featured “Soft Rhodes,” on various mixtapes, such as Hoodmorning (No Typo): Candy Coronas. Ironically, neither Dre nor Pharrell has heard the album in its completed state.

“I didn’t play the whole album for either one of them,” Game says. “They both were instrumental to the conception of it. But I don’t have to do that. They both know I can do it. I stopped sending people music when it got to the last two months. Nobody knows what the entire album sounds like except my engineer. [The album] was a little dark. But at the end, I did songs with Wale and [Rick] Ross and Mario. We got to the end of the album, and I was like, ‘We ain’t
got no songs for the bitches. None.’

“I had to reach out for Drake and Lloyd,” he continues.

“I already had Chris Brown, but the song he’s on is more inspirational. So it wasn’t catered toward the ladies. I had to go back in and lighten it up a little bit.”

Now, with the right hue to his project, Game feels that R.E.D. has topped all his previous efforts. “I know there’s some people that say, ‘Game fell off.’ For all of those people, I can’t wait for you to hear this new album,” he says enthusiastically. “Dre is narrating the entire album. It’s five or six skits going through my life. It’s connected to the songs, on a time line throughout my life, all the way into current-day Game. I asked Dre would he do that. I wrote out the script, and he did it. I cannot wait until people get a hold of this album and put it in. For me, I feel like I put everything I had into this album. It took me three years. And like I said, everything I had, I put in the album.”

Source - http://www.xxlmag.com/features/2011/09/game-grown-man-excerpt-from-the-october-2011-issue/2/