When a friend of mine who works at Allido Records in New York sent me the new 50 Cent album Curtis, he called me to make sure I would listen to all the tracks.
"Of course," I said. "Why do you ask?"
"Because you're going to want to skip some," he said.
And after the first six songs, I wanted to skip the last 11 tracks.
This is the simplest way to say that 50 Cent's latest album, released Sept. 11 by Aftermath, is less than mind-blowing. Originally scheduled to come out in late June, Curtis meanders through lackluster beats by a slew of artists and producers. One would think a gang including Timberland, Justin Timberlake, Dre, Akon, Mary J. Blige, DJ Khalil and Eminem would have people rushing to download the album, but the truth is, 50 just doesn't have the creative ability to pull off the latest gangster rap installment cohesively or effectively.
The theme of the album seems to be making money, which is obvious in songs like "I Get Money" and "Straight to the Bank." But other motifs wander throughout the album, namely violence (there are three tracks named in relation to guns) and sex ("Amusement Park" is a strange and somewhat sleazy metaphor for sex) versus some attempts at R&B love songs (featuring Robin Thicke and Blige). The result is disjointed and disappointing, and 50 -- who can still rock clubs with "In Da Club" and "P.I.M.P." -- steps up for some songs, but many on Curtis are just lacking.
First, the good. The aforementioned "I Get Money" definitely stands out on the album as most exemplary of 50's excellent ability to perform as a gangster. Sampling elements from Audio Two's "Top Billin,'" a widely used sample in hip-hop, the track will easily be a club anthem this fall. "I Get Money" taps into 50's prowess as a businessman and even touches on his dealings with one of his biggest investments, VitaminWater: "I took a quarter-water / Sold it in bottles for two bucks / Coca-Cola came and bought it for billions." Place the track along the rest of 50's hits; it's easy to get a sense of 50's performance style and sound as both gangster and businessman.
This performance, however, is lost throughout the rest of the tracks on Curtis. 50's voice is weak, non-assertive and too relaxed for his genre. "Man Down," for example, is slack and too slow. Few songs could be "stadium anthems," a genre of songs that work well with 50's image and persona. Stadium songs provide 50 with the arena he needs to fulfill his potential. Would you rather hear 50 rap along to a club beat, one where the crowd sweats and bobs their heads in unison, or hear him croon alongside Robin Thicke about relationships?
Unfortunately, this might be a problem with gangster rap in general. Maybe in preaching to one choir, 50 Cent has unintentionally limited himself as an artist and a performer. Gangster rap doesn't have much room for artistic ingenuity or creativity. It is firmly rooted in crowd-pleasers, rough realism, ringtone rap, catchy beats, easy production and big names. With Curtis we expect club and stadium anthems, so we skip the tracks that are "boring," tracks that are only boring because we don't approach them with any consideration beyond "I can't see myself doing anything to this."
That being said, how can we even begin to compare 50 Cent to Kanye West? The hype between the two is purely, as Ethan Hamlin stated in his article last week, commercial. Comparing the two is like comparing apples and oranges: There is no comparing them. The fact that both albums dropped on the same day echoes commercial ambitions of the industry as well as hip-hop's acknowledgment that there is more than "one" hip-hop. On Nov. 9, 1993, A Tribe Called Quest released their ground-breaking masterpiece Midnight Marauders while, on the same day, Wu-Tang released their gangster monument Enter the Wu-Tang. Just like Kanye and 50, you just can't compare these two albums. Midnight Marauders went on to influence artistically-conscious artists in hip-hop like Kanye while Enter the Wu-Tang paved the way for gangster rappers like 50. That being said, don't expect creative ambition from Curtis; 50 hired a crew of producers to help him challenge Kanye when he didn't really need to in the first place.
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