Credit: NRK P3

Compton is core to The Game’s life and career, but, eventually, he had to take the decision to leave the city he considers home. He relocated to Beverly Hills—but he certainly had legitimate reasons for doing so.

Game had a real Compton sort of upbringing, growing up, as he did, in a neighborhood controlled by the Crips. His parents were both supposedly members of the street gang, too, although Game himself later joined up with the Bloods.

As he got older, Game became involved in drug-dealing and other gang-related activities. This culminated, ultimately, in him getting shot several times in 2001. It was during his recovery that he decided to take seriously the prospect of becoming a rapper.

Throughout the music career that followed, The Game frequently referenced Compton in his music. The city has played a huge role in his career, with the man often eager to show off his connection to it.

Compton has such a rich hip-hop culture, having produced most of the members of NWA, Kendrick Lamar, and several other hip-hop icons through the years. The Game clearly likes to be a part of that lineage, although, to his mind, no one else from the city raps as well as he does. He has claimed to be the best of them all.

In any case, Compton means a lot to The Game. So why, then, did he decide to leave it? He understood all its problems, but he remained there for many years. What changed?

As he explained to NME in 2020, the threat of violence coming for his children proved to be too much. He had endured threats to his own life in Compton, but, with his kids coming into the line of fire, something had to change.

“The thing that changed my life was when a bullet went through my son’s car seat,” he explained, “and I was just about to go into the house and get him and put him in the car.”

This was a real wake-up call for the rapper. “A bullet hole was in the car seat where his head would have been,” he said. “And on that day, I moved out of Compton and got me a condo in Beverly Hills.”