Like Father, Like Son

Album: The Documentary (2005)
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Songfacts®:

  • Game became a father for the first time on June 30, 2003 when his then-partner, actress and model Valeisha Butterfield, gave birth to Harlem Caron Taylor. This song details the fifty minutes between the call that Valeisha was about to give birth, to the actual childbirth. Busta Rhymes supplied the hook in which he expresses the hope that Harlem doesn't have to grow up to be like his father.
  • Game recalled penning the track to Artist Direct: "When I wrote that song, I was just playing the beat. I had on these headphones," he said. "I was in the living room of this apartment Dr. Dre had gotten me. I had Harlem right there. He was probably about three-months-old. He was in a car seat. It was crazy. When he was that young, I was always scared to take him out of the car seat [Laughs]. He was my first kid. I love him so much. I didn't want to drop him because I get a little clumsy sometimes. I would just keep homie strapped up in a car seat all day, man [Laughs]. His momma would come in and be like, 'Are you going to take him out of the car seat and sit him somewhere?' I'd say, 'Sit him somewhere? You're acting like he's a piece of a furniture!' I kept him in the car seat!"

    "Kanye West gave me that beat, and I took it home and wrote that song," Game continued. "I remember the walls closing in on me, and I was able to somehow visualize everything I experienced the day he was born, and my mind started to project it on the walls. I think it took me no less than an hour to write it from start to finish."

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