The Game: The Documentary

Herald rating * * *

Like 50 Cent, rap star the Game started life on the wrong side of the tracks, then rose through the ranks of the mixtape scene until Dr Dre sat up and took notice. If his story is a case of deja vu, then the album brings back memories, too.

Westside Story could be In Da Club Part 2, particularly when 50 Cent chimes in on the album's chorus. Dre produced five of the album's 17 tracks but it sounds as though he did the lot. Fellow star producers Timbaland and Kanye West have gone for his streamlined, cinematic approach and big, beefy hooks. When the Game's good, he's solid, the best rhymes coming not when he's bragging about what makes a gangsta but when he's having a bit of a laugh on club banger How We Do or talking about the birth of his baby on Like Father, Like Son.

The Documentary is the strongest street album to come out since, well, 50 Cent but you have to wonder what it would have sounded like had he made it on his own.

Label: Interscope