Because The Game, hip-hop's leading proponent of punching men to the ground during friendly basketball matches and then threatening to kill them with a gun, has started his 60-day jail sentence in LA.

However, it looks like The Game will get an easier ride than most other prisoners, because his jail sentence will be marked by the cushy segregation that all other celebrity inmates receive. Which is ironic, because we wouldn't be able to recognise The Game if he held a gun to our head.

OK, maybe if he held an actual gun to our head…

The Game isn't just a rapper, he's a role-model. Admittedly he'd be a bigger role-model if people had actually listened to any of his music in the last two years, but The Game should still think carefully about how his actions influence the young. Otherwise next thing you know there'll be gangs of kids all wearing masks in shopping malls and hurting policemen's feelings willy-nilly. And that way chaos lies.

But, worse, kids could copy The Game and start threatening their peers with guns during innocent sporting events. Imagine if little Timmy from across the street was arrested for pulling a glock on a six-year-old girl during the climax of a tense school sports day egg and spoon race. Because when that inevitably happens, it'll all be The Game's fault.

Substitute 'egg and spoon race' for 'basketball match' and 'six-year-old girl' for 'some bloke' and you're pretty close to imagining what The Game did last year. By getting arrested for punching a competitor in the face, running to fetch a gun from his car and then threatening to kill him, The Game got himself in more trouble than he could have ever wished for.

Last month The Game was sentenced to 60 days in jail for the incident and, on Sunday, he showed up to start his sentence, as E! Online reports:

The "How We Do" hip-hopster reported to Los Angeles' Twin Towers Correctional Facility Sunday night to begin serving a 60-day sentence after pleading no contest last month to whipping out a gun during a schoolyard pickup basketball game last February. According to TMZ, The Game will do his time in the joint in an isolated cell segregated from the general prison population.

However, as everybody knows, when a celebrity gets sent to jail in Los Angeles they never fully serve out their time. It's expected that The Game will only serve half of his sentence and will be released 30 days into his term. Sounds cushy, we know, but how would you like spending Easter, St Patrick's Day and International Women's Day locked in a cell? The Game will experience a hitherto unknown emotional challenge trying to get through that without weeping like a baby.  

But listen, now that The Game is in jail and Foxy Brown is in jail, literally the only rappers not in jail at the moment are two of the Fat Boys and MC Miker G. Literally.

Read more:

The Game Goes to Jail - E! Online 

Can't we all say that's happened to us at one point or another? We know we can – and those toddlers won't be asking for their marbles back in a hurry – and now so can The Game.

Rapper The Game has been sentenced to 60 days in jail for waving a gun around during a basketball match in a schoolyard. Good thing too – if The Game got away with it, this gun-based kill-threatening could have snuck into professional sports, and God knows Alan Smith is dangerous enough as it is without a six-shooter strapped to his thigh.

The Game is probably best known for having the most spectacularly ill-thought-out name in music. Google The Game and you're taken to pages about a David Fincher film, a chain of videogame stores, an American sitcom, a wrestler, a Jurassic 5 song and a book about how to trick girls into sleeping with you. That's something you don't get with, say, Lethal Bizzle.

So, knowing that he's up against all of those things, The Game has decided to get himself in the news as many times as possible. Mainly by acting like a dickwad, granted, but you can't fault him for trying. In the past The Game has been arrested for swearing in a shopping centre, for pretending to be a policeman and for giving another policeman self-esteem issues but, as you can tell, none of those things involved punching a man during a friendly sporting event and then threatening to kill him with a gun.

Fortunately, The Game realised this a year ago and did that very thing. He was then charged in June and faced a five-year jail sentence for it. However, thanks to that most gangsta of legal get-out clauses – the plea-bargain – The Game has only ended up being sentenced to 60 days in jail. E! Online reports:

The hit-making rappper has been sentenced to two months in an L.A. lockup after pleading no contest Monday to whipping out a gun during a schoolyard pickup basketball game. The 28-year-old "How We Do" hip-hopster, referred to in court by his given name, Jacyeon Terrell Taylor, worked out a deal with prosecutors to avoid up to five years in the can. In exchange for his no-contest plea on a felony count of possession of a firearm in a school zone, the district attorney's office dropped two other felony charges—making criminal threats and exhibiting a firearm in the presence of a peace officer.

As well as 60 days locked up, The Game will also have to complete 150 hours of community service, and he'll be on probation for three years – which seems like an awful long time to last for someone who once got arrested for making a policeman feel bad. 

So The Game is in jail and Foxy Brown is in jail. It seems that if this trend continues for much longer then all rappers will need to behave themselves because of their various probation orders. This will usher in a new era of gentlemanly, well-mannered hip-hop – and we've already preempted it, as our stocks of baggy tuxedos and oversized top-hats will attest.

And if Westwwod doesn't put our new banger Oh Marjory (What A Delightful Blouse) on heavy rotation by Easter, we'll be very surprised.

Read more:

Game Off—Rapper Sentenced to Jail - E! Online