Arriving in the land of purple mountain majesties, Niko Bellic doesn't come equipped with any Rock Band instruments, but that doesn't mean Liberty City isn't a musically-driven town, an earful experience.  There are over 200 tracks to flip through across a rather mind-boggling spectrum of genres, and it's natural to gravitate towards our own real-life tastes when it comes to selecting what Niko essentially listens to in the game.

So it makes a lot of sense when my particular version of Niko listens to a lot of rap music.  A quintessentially American concoction, rap conveys truth, delusion, anger, and promise, frequently appropriating pre-existing and emerging elements, sounds, and textures, then remixing them, remodeling them, and finally revealing them once again in the artist's own image.  That’s the essence of rap music.

And this process, this creation of rap music speaks to the trials and tribulations Niko faces as well.  While his cousin Roman's optimism keeps alive the ideals of what the United States purportedly stands for from an immigrant’s perspective, Niko himself is waking up from this oversold American dream, seemingly within minutes of his arrival.  Early on, Niko begins the arduous and unexpected process of stripping down his hyperbolized, smoke-and-mirrors concepts about what America is, chewing it and digesting it during a downward-spiral series of firsthand observances, and then reconstructing that selfsame American dream into what it truly is for him, recognizable only by him, reformed and revealed by his own hand, not the fanciful letters from his cousin. 

And sometimes (not all the time; I don't want to oversell this idea) the rap tracks playing on 102.7 The Beat and old-school hip hop channel The Classics 104.1 manifest the spirit and intent of that GTA IV journey.  To me at least.

So when Niko is blindsided by a betrayal from a respected, well-liked, and trustworthy individual, in a backstabbing worthy of a blood feud … and Nas is on the radio reassuring Niko that “War Is Necessary” … those are the moments that begin to transcend any average videogaming experience.  It just nailed it for me.  Personalized it for me.  Carved out that particular episode for me.

Perhaps, when you play through the above scenario, you’ll be tuned into The Journey radio station, and Philip Glass’ heart-palpitating string and brass ensemble, “Pruit Igoe,” will narrate your scene (that’s the anthemic song heard on the debut GTA IV trailer).  Or maybe Lonnie Liston Smith on the IF99 channel will bathe your day with funk-laden irony as he explores what might happen were there “A Chance For Peace,” when you already know there’s no longer any chance for that.

Those are the sandbox possibilities that leave me absolutely floored.  Not that, yeah, I can pick up a hooker, beat up a hooker, and take my money back from a hooker.  That’s all well and good (if that’s your thing), but it certainly lacks the nuance I’m describing here.  I’m looking at the myriad aural variables that accompany the myriad tactile variables in Liberty City, even on otherwise common occurrences like the loose-leaf description above.

In one other scenario, after I’d been on a first date with the obsessive-compulsive but nonetheless sweet Michelle, my car silently idled outside of her apartment to the tune of Special Ed’s “I Got It Made.”  And at that moment, there was no better song I could’ve turned to on the radio.