Leaving your hometown tends to be a solid strategy for rappers who have found success.

The Game spoke on the moment he knew he had to move away from his beloved city of Compton in the latest edition of NME.

“I was f*ckin’ five times Platinum and still getting in shoot-outs in my neighbourhood,” The Game, who now lives in Calabasas, explains. “The thing that changed my life was when a bullet went through my son’s car seat and I was just about to go into the house and get him and put him in the car. A bullet hole was in the car seat where his head would have been. And on that day, I moved out of Compton and got me a condo in Beverly Hills.”

Later in the interview, he admitted that squashing his beef with 50 Cent in 2016 didn't sit well with him at first, but that he now realizes it was the right thing to do.

“Ah, I felt like a pussy,” he admits. “But I mean that’s just me. At one point me and 50 really wanted to kill each other. I had a deep hate for him and he had a deep hate for me. We literally should have been another version of Biggie and Tupac. We both should have died in that beef. There was a lot of dangerous shit going on. We were shooting at each other; our squads were shooting at each other. It was on sight. It was gun shots and people getting stabbed. It went even bigger than 50 and me and our entourages – it was our fans. The fans had to pick and they were split up and even they were fighting.

“So yeah, squashing that beef was probably the best thing for me and him to do. I’m glad we did it. Beefs usually don’t get squashed until someone gets murdered. That’s just how it is where I come from.”

View this post on Instagram

It's Big Read time! Hip-hop icon The Game (@losangelesconfidential) claims his brilliant recent album 'Born 2 Rap' will be his last. How come? He tells @jordandbassett about the one thing would get him back in the booth, his verdict on Wiley Vs. Stormzy, feuding with 50 Cent and why he has sympathy for currently incarcerated hip-hop pariah 6ix9ine. Link in bio 🎤

A post shared by NME (@nmemagazine) on Jan 24, 2020 at 6:50am PST