GAME TIME:

IT’S not often that you see a gangsta cry -- let alone hear one shedding tears on a record. But that’s what happened late one night last summer, when the multiplatinum-selling hard-core rapper known as the Game was very drunk inside a Burbank recording studio, laying down vocals for the title track of “Doctor’s Advocate,” his second album and one of the most eagerly anticipated rap releases of the year.

The liquor made him sentimental and melancholy, but also unapologetically honest. That was the only way the Compton MC born Jayceon Taylor knew he’d be able to fully articulate the range of gratitude and regret that prompted the song, an open letter to his mentor, Andre “Dr. Dre” Young.

“Dre, I ain’t mean to turn my back on you.... I owe you my life,” the Game raps. “I told you, you were like a father to me. I meant that.”

He was upset, in part, for having put Dre in an untenable position. The kingmaking super-producer signed the Game to his Aftermath record imprint in 2002 and was executive producer of the rapper’s 2.4-million-selling 2005 debut album, “The Documentary” -- in effect, anointing him a superstar. The trouble began when the Game became mired in an acrimonious “beef” with Aftermath label-mate and fellow Dre protege 50 Cent -- who has claimed he wrote several songs on “The Documentary” and waged a corrosive war of words with the Game via mix-tape diss tracks -- ignoring Dre’s entreaties that they settle their differences. Further, the Game was shaken by a decision he would make public that July: He was leaving Dre’s label to sign with its sister label, Geffen Records.

That night in the studio, the song’s producer, Jonathan “J.R.” Rotem, was quick to realize this wasn’t going to be business as usual in the recording booth.

“It was him having a direct conversation with Dr. Dre,” Rotem said. “A lot of rappers have a lot of fronts and may never do something that’s this personal. It speaks volumes about Game to see him do something so real and vulnerable and egoless on a track -- and make it the title track.”

Whereas Dre supplied many of the beats on “The Documentary,” his contributions are notably absent on the second album (which comes out Tuesday) even though it’s intended largely as a tribute to him -- he’s the titular doctor, after all. And while heavyweight producers including Kanye West, Scott Storch, Just Blaze and Timbaland more than capably fill in, the perceived rift has caused the Game’s numerous detractors to predict commercial failure for his album.

“Opinions are very split on Game,” said Carl Chery, a senior correspondent for the hip-hop news website www.SOHH.com. “There’s been endless debate about how his new album’s going to do. People say Game’s going to flop without Dre and 50. On the other hand, he’s shown enough skill and growth on the mix-tapes he’s released since his first album and an ability to carry the load himself.”

The MC has until now provided little explanation about the choice to switch labels, but he said he made the move because of a contractual stipulation from his time in 50’s G-Unit rap collective that paid 50 a royalty on Game’s sales as long as he remained an Aftermath artist. “I didn’t get kicked off, I left,” he said, while tapping out replies to his MySpace.com “friends” on a computer in the office of his Glendale home. “If I wanted to work with Dre, 50 would have made money off my album. I can’t let him do that.”

“It was a decision that Game made in order to start building his own profile, and it made sense to him to stand on his own, label-wise,” Interscope Geffen A&M; Records, the parent company of both labels, said in a statement. “So he made the switch to Geffen.”

In the final weeks leading up to the release of “Doctor’s Advocate,” the Game has kept his game face on, insisting in interviews that he’s “the most potent MC in hip-hop” and that he’ll sell 1 million copies in the album’s first week of release -- despite that fact that as a result of general sluggishness in the recording industry no act has had a 1-million-plus first week since ... 50 Cent’s “The Massacre” came out in February 2005.

Still, the self-described former drug dealer, who boasts of his connection to the Cedar Block Piru Bloods gang in songs and videos, admits to a certain amount of performance anxiety.

“I’ve been having bad dreams,” said the Game, 26. “Even when you’ve sold as many albums as I have, you wonder: What are they going to say? Are they going to like it? Nobody thinks I can do it by myself.”

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War of words

ON March 1, 2005, the Game woke up not realizing he needed to keep his friends close and his enemies closer. But before the day was over, he found himself neck-deep in what became one of hip-hop’s nastiest beefs.

In downtown Manhattan to do a radio interview, he discovered that 50 Cent -- who raps alongside him on the Game’s biggest singles, “How We Do” and “Hate It or Love It” -- had taken to the airwaves at another New York radio station and announced he was kicking the Game out of G-Unit for being “disrespectful” toward him. That night, the Game’s entourage attempted to enter a radio station where 50 Cent was conducting a second interview when violence flared; one of Game’s Compton homeboys was injured by a gunshot from an unidentified assailant.

“When I got home, it was war,” the Game said. “So I put the pen to the pad and created ‘300 Bars.’ That was the beginning of the end for G-Unit.”

He’s talking about the notorious 15-minute diss track that verbally flagellates 50 and G-Unit -- the first song in the Game’s “diss”-cography that includes four underground mix-tapes filled with dozens of songs assaulting every aspect of the Queens, N.Y., MC and his acolytes. The Game also distributed a controversial DVD, “Stop Snitchin, Stop Lyin,” in which he and his posse travel to a house in Connecticut they say belongs to 50 Cent, lurking in the underbrush behind his backyard and stealing the rim from his basketball court.

According to DJ Skee, the Angeleno mix-tape king and a producer behind three of the Game’s underground CDs, the Compton rapper made up his mind to go on the offensive after considering what 50 Cent had done to rapper Ja Rule and the New York hard-core rap group D-Block. On song after song, 50 Cent mocked them until their street credibility all but evaporated, and his status as rap’s top diss monger seemed unassailable.

The Game’s “whole personal theory was: ‘If they are going to try to destroy me, I’m going to destroy them,’ ” DJ Skee said. “And he’d come up with it really fast. We recorded a whole CD in three days.”

50 Cent responded in kind with the attack track “Not Rich, Still Lyin’,” among others. And while neither camp can lay claim to an unmitigated victory, the perception remains that the Game came out ahead simply for being able to withstand the sustained attacks.

“Game took on an entire crew by himself,” Chery said. “He stood his ground. People are still interested in him and his album. It’s a win for the simple fact that we’re still talking about it.”

The Game, of course, parses his achievement differently. “Nobody thought it could be done -- even the people close to me -- nobody believed I’d be back at this point,” he said. “Now I’m bigger than I was the first time. Now, the only person who has breathing room in G-Unit is 50. I’ve annihilated his crew. That brand is gone.”

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The good doctor

DR. DRE’S presence looms large on almost every song on “Doctor’s Advocate.” Its second single, the West Coast anthem “Let’s Ride (Strip Club),” features a mention of his mentor on every verse, notably on a couplet referencing Dre’s seminal 1992 album, “The Chronic,” which takes its name from a particularly potent marijuana strain: “Remember that Dre / You passed me the torch, I lit the chronic with it / Now the whole world is my ashtray.”

As it turns out, all the paeans to Dre were written before he left Aftermath. But any discussion of the rapper’s “advocacy” must begin with his previous life as a drug dealer. The Game grows solemn as he discusses the night he was shot in 2001 -- something he seldom speaks about publicly.

“I was in the house close to 1 [a.m.] in the dope spot,” the Game said. “I got a knock at the door and some clown guy who buys from me was there, really no threat at all. I opened the door and three guys came in behind him.

“I fell down,” he continued. “One guy ran to the table to get my gun. I instantly tackled him. The other guys couldn’t shoot because I’m rolling around with their partner. I tried to wrestle the gun away from the biggest one of them -- and I’m a big guy: 6-5, 220 -- but this guy was huge.

“I heard a bunch of shots go off and fell to the ground. At that point, I knew I got hit in the leg. I just lay there, still, and didn’t move for what turned out to be two minutes. They thought they had killed me. I crawled to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. My wife-beater [shirt] was all red. I pulled it back and blood squirted on the glass. I was going crazy! I pulled my Nextel from off my hip and called 911, then passed out.”

Soon after, he says, he gave up dealing, turned to hustling his music. Dre heard his demo and signed the Game to Aftermath; he credits Dre with saving his life.

“He looked up to Dr. Dre musically,” said Rotem. “But then to be signed by him and have Dr. Dre put his stamp behind him is a huge thing. In the rap industry, who is vouching that you’re good is a huge deal. So when you have the stamp of Dre, who’s the most credible producer, and he says somebody is ‘the one,’ that carries a lot.”

The Game explains their relationship in terms of an elaborate metaphor. “If you were drowning in the Pacific Ocean, two gasps from being dead, and some guy saved your life, you’d feel forever in debt,” he said. “Dre gave me damn near everything I own. If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be at the soccer game with my kid. And I owe Dr. Dre a lot more than I say I do.”

“Doctor’s Advocate” is a gritty, urgent album that often recalls vintage N.W.A. It’s filled with cameos by Snoop Dogg, Kanye West, Xzibit, Jamie Foxx and Busta Rhymes -- who tries to reason with Dre on the Game’s behalf on the album’s title track. “He a hardhead, that’s why I’m talkin’ to you,” Rhymes raps on the cut. “You gave him something that could make or break a nigga, you should face it / So big, I don’t think even he was ready to embrace it.”

The Game says he is regularly in touch with Dre and has spoken with him about collaborating on his next album. “Me and Dre are good,” Game said. Dre could not be reached for an interview.

Looking back on the five years since he was shot, the Game acknowledges that his life has been full of jubilance and indignation, violence and difficult choices. But he wears everything he’s been through for all to see, as proudly as the Dodgers logo tattooed on his cheekbone.

“I’ve been up, down, people have seen me cry on TV, seen me involved in shootouts, all kind of crazy” stuff, he said. “I think people love me for being me. I’m still a hungry, humble guy from Compton. I don’t know how I ended up here.”

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chris.lee@latimes.com