Game vs. YG Verzuz Recap: Tequila, Travis Barker and a Blowout Score

Compton rappers YG and The Game brought their “Compton Forever” Verzuz to Apple Music Studios, with fans voting YG the winner 19-3.

The Game and YG put on one of the year’s biggest Verzuz battles Thursday night despite the day starting with a SWAT team at YG’s door.

The “Compton Forever” showdown went live at 6:30 P.M. PT from Apple Music Studios in Los Angeles.

Game kicked things off by bringing out Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker to bang out the live drum break on “Dope Boys” from his LAX album, and the crowd lost it immediately.

Game also made it a night to remember off the music, gulping down nearly an entire bottle of Don Julio onstage and smashing the empty bottle to the ground in celebration.

Fan voting wasn’t close by the end, with YG winning the round count 19 to 3. Game has one of the deepest catalogs in West Coast rap history but Verzuz runs on crowd energy, and YG’s DJ Mustard-produced anthems were built for exactly this kind of room.

It’s the same reason French Montana pulled the upset over Rick Ross earlier this season.

The two also linked up earlier in the day to drop a collab track called “Red People,” produced by Verzuz co-founders Swizz Beatz and Timbaland, with both men repping Compton and their Blood affiliations over a hard bass-driven beat.

As the AllHipHop preview of this matchup noted, these two represent completely different eras of the same city’s sound and that tension made the night feel like more than just a catalog flex.

What made Thursday even more dramamtic was what happened before the show.

Early that morning, the California Highway Patrol and a Burbank SWAT team executed a search warrant at a commercial property connected to YG on Moss Street, detaining him around 7 A.M. in connection with the unsolved 2021 murder of Drakeo the Ruler.

Per NBC Los Angeles, CHP confirmed YG was not arrested and is not a suspect or person of interest in the case. He was released and made the show.

YG has consistently denied involvement in Drakeo’s death and addressed the rumors directly on “We Know the Truth” from his latest album The Gentlemen’s Club.

Drakeo was stabbed backstage at the Once Upon a Time in L.A. festival in December 2021 and died from his wounds at 28, with no arrests made in nearly five years.

The Drakeo the Ruler homicide investigation remains active, and no additional charges were announced following Thursday’s search warrant.

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