Hiphop's worst nightmare, Mr. Gangsta Rap is back in black Nike Airs

Which is to say I've rediscovered gangsta rap after some years. I'd forgotten how good it felt to be full of adolescent anger.

But it's not quite the same as the first time round. Take The Game's album; The Documentary. It's got all the west coast trademarks - vaguely menacing beats, superb production, all the nihilism you could want etc. But The Game is very aware of himself as the latest tradition of west coast gangstas and he just won't shut up about it. So on the one hand, this give the album some sort of, I don't know, dramatic weight. On the other hand, this vitiates the immediacy of the whole business - after all, one of the attractions of the genre was that it was a sort of direct expression of what a particularly unattractive way of life was like.

Anyhow, it's worth a listen.