Results tagged “The Game” from Crime Scene

Here's a plan to keep at-risk kids off drugs, away from gangs and out of trouble.

Invite a tattooed, baggy pants "gangsta" rapper to meet a classroom full of impressionable high schoolers.

Make sure his biography includes jail time. Make sure he's been hit by gunfire. Make sure he brags about having pulled drive-bys.

Make it clear that his conviction for carrying a loaded firearm in a school zone is no big deal. Make sure he brings a posse known for packing their gats.

Guns belong in schools right?

Believe it or not, at Muir High School in Pasadena Tuesday, Amer-I-Can brought rapper Jayceon Terrell Taylor, a.k.a "The Game" , a.k.a. "Chuck Taylor" to speak to 50 kids who are part of Mustangs on the Move.

The program, which also consists of Mentoring Partnership for Youth Development, targets students at risk of dropping out, according to its organizers.

Organizers of the Muir event claim "The Game" was all about mentoring.

Take Game's advice, "I just want you to stay alive," for example.

Of course his music is full of instruction. Like the rap on "Real Gangstaz"

"The kid roll with a greasy nine/come through and blast/I return shots like Arthur Ashe/You do the math/ ten shots ten dead bodies/(expletive) bein' sorry/it ain't nuttin' but a gangsta party."

A few years back, I remember talking to Colin Powell before a speech at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium.

The former U.S. Secretary of State and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff talked about the importance of volunteerism and mentoring. His examples didn't include role models like "The Game."

He talked about real adults helping real kids learn to tackle real problems.

In an interview, the retired 4-star Army general said his ultimate goal was "to surround our children with responsible caring adults and let our children grow up in safe places where they are protected from some of the dangers out there on the streets."

I hoped to ask Pasadena school Superintendent Edwin Diaz if "The Game" held similarly lofty goals for the children and teens of Pasadena.

I wanted to ask, "Why 'The Game?'

"Why not City Councilwoman Jacque Robinson? Why not potential First Lady Michelle Obama? Why not Powell? Why not U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas? Why not former Deputy District Attorney Chris Darden? Why not former Pasadena police Lt. Rick Law?

"Why not one of the thousands of successful black men and women who live or work in Pasadena every day?"

Unfortunately I didn't get a call back. It was graduation day for about 60 percent of the kids who started there as freshmen four years ago.

The other 40 percent?

Probably off somewhere listening to "The Game."