The Game has never been shy about taking aim at other rappers, but the Compton-born artist has admitted that his recent disses of Eminem had a hidden motive.

In an interview with DJ Vlad, The Game said that he went at Eminem on the song “The Black Slim Shady” from his “Drillmatic – Heart vs. Mind” because he was mad at Dr. Dre.

“Throwing shots at Eminem and beefing with Eminem, it was just me being upset with Dr. Dre,” The Game admitted. “Dr. Dre can’t out-rap me, so I just went at Em, just because that’s just how I get sometimes. But it’s always competitive. It ain’t like I’m gonna see Em and be like, ‘What’s up now?!’ It’s Em, you know what I’m saying? And Em took his shots on a record that dropped, and yo, Em is a funny guy.”

Game was mad at Dr. Dre for not inviting him at the 2022 Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show, which featured Dr. Dre, Eminem, Snoop Dogg, 50 Cent, Mary J. Blige and Anderson .Paak.

“The real reason I wasn’t on the Super Bowl is because I’m not a ‘safe’ artist,” he said on the “I Am Athlete” podcast several months later. “You don’t know what Game gon’ do when he get up there. They went with the ‘safe’ artists.”

“I feel like this: the Super Bowl is in L.A. It’s a Dr. Dre Super Bowl, but it is Jay-Z [whose company partnered with the NFL on the show],” he continued. “But Jay-Z understands the dynamics of West Coast Hip-Hop very well, and I don’t think Jay-Z would’ve had a problem if Dre would’ve said, ‘We bringing Game on the Super Bowl.’”

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