The Game has announced the release date for his long-awaited 10th album, ‘Drillmatic – Mind Vs. Heart’.
The rapper has been teasing the new LP for the past few months, sharing tidbits about it on social media including how it will “be the best album of 2022” because the energy behind it “feels like I just signed my deal”.
On Saturday (May 28), The Game took to Instagram to reveal that ‘Drillmatic’ will be arriving on June 17 and that it is executive produced by Hit-Boy. The announcement came alongside an old photograph of himself and his son, but it’s unclear at this point if this will be the album’s cover art.
Hit-Boy recently stopped by Sway Calloway’s Sway In The Morning radio show, and while he was there he played a snippet of a new track from The Game which looks set to appear on ‘Drillmatic’.
“I gotta hear that Game shit,” Sway told Hit-Boy, after which the producer started a track that featured his uncle Ian on the intro. You can check it out below.
‘Drillmatic’ follows 2019’s ‘Born 2 Rap’, which The Game claimed would be his final album. Speaking to NME at the time of the LP’s release, he said the only thing that might bring him out of retirement would be a collaboration with either Eminem or JAY-Z.
In a four-star review of ‘Born 2 Rap’, NME‘s Will Lavin said it wasn’t “just a library of classic records blended together: it’s a lesson in storytelling, something The Game has never received enough credit for.”
Meanwhile, The Game has been getting very vocal lately about how he’s a better rapper than Eminem, saying that he would happily go up against him in a VERZUZ battle.
In March, he told N.O.R.E. and DJ EFN on the Drink Champs podcast: “I like Eminem, he’s one of the fucking good MCs, great MCs.”
“I used to think Eminem was better than me,” he admitted. Game was then asked how he feels now, to which he replied: “He not. He not. He’s not. Challenge it.”
He reinforced his belief that he’s the superior rapper in a new interview with All The Smoke, while suggesting that Eminem isn’t played in public – at least not at the club or in a locker room.
“When have you ever heard Eminem in a club?” he asked hosts Stephen Jackson and Matt Barnes. “When have you ever heard it in the locker room? And I’m not taking away from that, I don’t hear Eminem in the streets. I just don’t. It’s not saying he can’t rap. The skillset is there. I’m just the better rapper. I just haven’t been given the light he’s been giving.”