So it's official: The Game has been escorted from the Aftermath building (there probably isn't one) and "reassigned" to Geffen Records, the infamous home to Kurt Cobain's corpse, Sonic Youth, and probably a shiteload of other groups no one gives a shit about. Hole might still be on Geffen, if they're a group at this point.

A few years ago, MCA Records was folded into Geffen Records by its parent corporation, Tall Israelis, Inc., which led to The Roots, Black Star, Common, and a few other "sensitive" rap groups ending up signed to the label. According to an interview Talib Kweli did with this site, Jimmy "Double Fantasy" Iovine basically runs the label as well as all of the other labels under the Universal Music Group.

Still, for a hip-hop artist to be signed to Geffen would be awful if only because the idea of a rapper being on a label named after a flamboyantly gay person would obviously seem fairly counterintuitive. I wonder if this occurred to 50 Cent when he put in the call to have the Game dropped from the 'Math or if this is just one of those wonderful bits of serendipity. Nullus.

Similarly, you wonder what's Dr. Dre's position on all of this. Who knows the state of his relationship with the Game (nullus?), but I'm sure it bothers him that 50 Cent basically runs his label. To think, he spent all that time making (er, taking credit for) classics like the Chronic and Doggystyle, only to end up having the guy that did "Candy Shop" tell him what's what.

That said, from a business standpoint, I'd be more concerned with maintaining my relationship with Fiddy, if I was the good doctor. The Game may be becoming a great rapper, but he's also an insane bitch. At the rate he's going, he might get shot or something. 50 Cent will always sucks balls, but I'm sure he'll continue to churn out garbage like The Massacre until the point of diminishing marginal returns.

The fact that the Game now falls under an entirely different label group than Aftermath - albeit, part of the same corporation - would suggest to me that his working relationship with Dr. Dre is essentially over. Maybe Dre has already done some stuff for the Doctor's Advocate that Game can take with him, but I would assume that no more Dre production is also implicit in this arrangement.

As my Carribbean American cousin eskay put it, any way you slice it, the Game took an L on this one. Of course I'm still going to be interested in hearing the new album, but I wouldn't be surprised if the trajectory of his career is mostly downhill from here on out.

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