It had to happen. Hip-Hop, with its never-too-secret fantasy fuel of bling, rides, Glocks and women who seem always to be emanating from poolside at the fill-in-the-blanks thug of the moment, is officially dead. And who broke the story? Possibly the Whitest Paper in America. Newsday, with an assist from the L.A. Times. Here's how:

Dr. Dre, who's been little buddy or great Yoda to Eminem, depending on what side of the producer's booth you're standing on, has produced yet another offspring in the now-familiar, sullen-looking young men telling tales on wax of abandonment, suffering, and eventual rage, culminating in shooting, stabbings, and the just as inevitable redemption. It's the assembly line that is now so clichéd it's a wonder it's still working.

Then here comes The Game, a.k.a. Jayceon Taylor, shilling for his new disc, "Too Big To Fail," which - of course - sets up the story as we expect it to be fed to us: he lived with a dozen other kids in a foster home. He stole cars and dealt drugs. "He was shot point blank and woke up 27 hours later in the hospital," the reporter tells us breathlessly, and then lowers the boom that wrecks The Game's street cred:

"My album is my story as a whole," The Game adds, "There's a song about my son that takes you from the Lamaze class all the way to the delivery room."

Damn, killa.

Paging Rick Rubin, who staged a mock funeral for the word "def" in his "Def American" label, replete with bottles of .40 poured over a fresh grave and a dark tombstone. Calll him up, G. Ask him to do it again, because your '64 Impala just ran out of juice and your guns are all out of ammo.