Compton rappers YG and The Game brought their “Compton Forever” verzuz to Apple Music Studios, with fans voting YG the winner 19-3.
On Thursday night, The Game and YG staged one of the biggest Verzuz battles of the year, even though there was a SWAT team at YG’s door that day.
The “Compton Forever” showdown will be broadcast live from Apple Music Studios in Los Angeles at 6:30 pm Pacific time.
The competition kicked off with Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker banging out live drum beats from his LAX album “Dope Boys” and the audience was immediately disoriented.
Game also made the night an unforgettable musical one, drinking almost an entire bottle of Don Julio on stage and smashing the empty bottle to the ground in celebration.
Join us
AllHipHop’s daily news service
News delivered to your inbox since 1999. We broke it. They accepted it. First get it directly from AllHipHop.
The fan voting didn’t end until the very end, with YG winning the round 19-3. Game has one of the deepest catalogs in West Coast rap history, but Verzuz runs on the energy of the crowd, and the anthem produced by YG’s DJ Mustard is the kind of room made for.
That’s why French Montana beat Rick Ross earlier this season.
Earlier in the day, the two also teamed up for a collaborative track titled “Red People,” produced by Verzuz co-founders Swizz Beatz and Timbaland, who represent Compton and his Blood relationship over a powerful bass-driven beat.
As the AllHipHop preview of this matchup points out, these two represent completely different eras of the same city’s sound, and that tension made the night feel like more than just a catalogue.
What made Thursday even more dramatic was what happened before the show.
Early that morning, the California Highway Patrol and Burbank SWAT executed a search warrant at a commercial property on Moss Street associated with YG and detained him around 7 a.m. in connection with the 2021 murder of Dominator Drakeo.
According to NBC Los Angeles, the CHP confirmed that YG has not been arrested and is not a suspect or person of interest in the case. He was released and took part in the show.
YG has always denied any involvement in Drakeo’s death and directly addressed the rumors in “We Know the Truth,” off his latest album Gentlemen’s Club.
Drakeo was stabbed backstage at the Once Upon a Time in Los Angeles music festival in December 2021 and eventually died of his injuries at the age of 28. No one has been arrested in the past five years.
The Dominator Draco homicide investigation remains ongoing, and no additional charges were announced after a search warrant was issued Thursday.
