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This is 50 Cent's last chance to avoid moving into the Ja Rule Retirement Home that he built a few years ago.
1. The Invasion (prod. Ty Fyffe): 3/5
I think this song is about shooting people. More importantly, it's an invitation to get shot by 50 Cent; looking at what it did for his career, all aspiring rappers take note.
Choice lyric:
"You got gonorrhea too, we fucked with the same bitch." Damn 50...
2. Then Days Went By (prod. Lab Ox): 4/5
Soulful, but contradictory. 50 just spent three minutes telling everyone to come get at him, and now he wants to be left alone? This song's about the passage of time on a daily basis and how it affects 50 and his friends, especially with respect to the fact that many of 50 and his friends' earlier ventures were short-lived.
Choice lyric:
"She was 20, I was 12... I said 'take me baby, take me.'" But his nana thought it was rape.
I like the guitar, hate everything else. However, 50 is providing young hustlers a great money making opportunity: kill his enemies, and he'll give you money. Even though earlier he said he would do it himself. As days go by.
Choice lyric:
"Rapid fire sweet like apple cider." Delicious, but deadly.
4. So Disrespectful (prod. Tha Bizness): 4/5
Gotta love the fake Dr. Dre pianos. This is the song where he tries to diss The Game, but remember that The Game dissed him first. He also says he's richer.
Choice lyric:
"First comes love, then comes marriage; instead I got Shaniqua in the baby carriage." And he wonders why the baby momma drama comes along.
5. Psycho (prod. Dr. Dre): 4/5
A scary song, perfect for Halloween. And because it's got one of those constant violin lines, you gotta rhyme like Eminem on it; and, if you know him well enough, get Eminem on the song. It's a Dr. Dre beat, but not one that gets me really excited for Detox, kind of like all the tracks on Relapse.
Choice lyric:
50- "School of Arts, Julliard, you better learn learn."
Em- "Beat the octomom to death with a cabbage patch kid. Attack the snatch, now there's something to jack a batch in. Impregnate her, then shoot up the embryo sac with Mac 10's. Triplets, quadruplets, and a couple of back-to-back twins; that fetus is falling out all over."
6. Hold Me Down (prod. Team Ready & J Keys): 3/5
The percussion on this song is awesome, but the fact that 50 wrote a love song to his gun bothers me, which, also, changes from a six shooter to a glock to an Uzi and then back again. Since when did guns get chick names? If this song catches on, I'm naming my gun Amelia Earhart.
Choice lyric:
"I put no one above you; *kiss* "kiss* I love you."
"Use my finger to get you hot, girl- yeah."
It's about a gun.
7. Crime Wave (prod. Team Demo): 3/5
Goddamn these beats are repetitive after about 2 minutes. This is one of those call and response tracks for people who like to kill 9 guys in 9 days with their 9's and also hold them sideways for minimum control and maximum collateral damage.
Choice lyric:
"Crime wave, crime wave, Whoa, wave; whoa, wave: yeah yeah yeah, (no no no no no) yeah."
8. Stretch (prod. Rick Rock): 3/5
Man was I hoping for a different song after listening to the first few seconds of this song. The same plodding kick drum pattern of every other song on this album. Not a single track with a good solid groove. This song is about turning cocaine into laffy taffy so you can stretch it and use it to get Batman high.
Choice lyric:
"I'm the whatever man."
9. Strong Enough (prod. Nascent & QB Da Problem): 4/5
Hey, same kick pattern! But it's a clever sample of "If I Was Your Woman" by Gladys Knight. Not as catchy as Hustler's Ambition, but it's a lot better than what's next.
Choice lyric:
"I'm like a zebra, I got so many stripes. I'm the fucking general, I run my clique right. It was five of us, all of us millionaires; now one's a fucking junkie, and one's a fucking queer."
Did you really run your clique right if this happened, 50?
10. Get It Hot (prod. Black Key): 1/5
This is an "I Get Money" knock-off, and it is bad. It sounds like they sampled the sound the TV makes when your cable's out.
Choice lyric:
"I'm a substitute teacher, welcome to Sex Ed."
Thank God I skipped class that day.
11. Gangsta's Delight (prod. Havoc): 2/5
This is what happens when you have a bad idea and try to make it worse. I think they had a little bit of white noise left over from "Get It Hot" so they used it here again.
Choice lyric:
"Now what you hear is not a test, I said it's not a test. Nigga, it's not a test."
Put that pencil down fool, it's not a test. Now go kill one of my enemies and I'll let you take my sex ed class for free.
12. I Got Swag (prod. Dual Output): 3/5
Back to a bland soulful track, and guess what the kick pattern is? But at least the test of the emergency broadcast system is over. I wonder what this song is about though.
Choice lyric:
"Shorty wanna try anal, her friends do it."
Peer pressure at it's finest.
13. Baby By Me (prod. Polow Da Don): 4/5
This song is definitely one of the better grooves on the album, but what really puts it over the top for me is the message- have a baby by me, be a millionaire. Is there any better pick up line?
Choice lyric:
50: "Turn a quickie into an all-nighter maybe; Your sex drive, it matches my sex drive.... you can feel every inch of it when we intimate."
Ne-Yo: "You and me (you and me)"
14. Do You Think About Me (prod. Rockwilder): 4/5
Really cool sample, another great groove. Of course, this is the part of the album that you knew was coming. 50 gotta get laid too, can't just be shooting people all the time.
Choice lyric:
"My ex: I had her eating lobster, now she eating pizza."
Don't mess with 50.
15. OK, You're Right (prod. Dr. Dre & Mark Batson): 3/5
Another Dr. Dre beat, from an old mixtape. It's an OK song, but but why is it here at the end of the album? Really hurts the groove of the album, with the last few songs being slower, not shooting people type songs.
Choice lyric:
"You say I'm rich. OK, you're right."
Best song on the album, was supposed to be a track for Detox, but it doesn't sound like a Dr. Dre beat. Great style, and it's about telling off ho's, just like a few of these other songs.
Choice lyric:
50: "You know a bitch don't usually mean nothing to me, but she's my dog."
R. Kelly!: "Say girl, come here. No you. No, her. You. No, her! The reason you didn't get dick is because you got your girls up your ass smelling your shit. But tonight you met your match, because I be smelling my shit too; now, how you like that?"
I think R. Kelly heard Dave Chappelle's "Piss on You" Remix and got a few ideas of his own.
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Overall: 3/5
Every track has one musical element I really like and one that I can't stand. A lot of the noise tracks have nice piano melodies in the background. Unfortunately this is the album that Curtis should have been, a kind of average third album with no hit songs and then 50 comes back strong on his fourth album.
But I think what we can gather from this is that 50 Cent is done.
Unless he starts rapping about things that are plausible that he could be doing, like going snorkeling and eating rare foods in other countries, not things that we know he never did to begin with and now are pretty much impossible for him to pull off.
I think he needs to put the guns down. He wrote a self-help book- I don't think shooting up all the haters in my neighborhood is going to help anyone.
3 comments:
It's a fucking 50 Cent album! If u wanted to hear song with melodies go buy an Earth Wind and Fire cd. This is what people who enjoy 50 Cent love to hear. The songs u like with Neo and R Kelly are the weakest on the album. I bet u thought Curtis was a master piece because of all the RnB tracks he had on there.
Thanks for the Earth, Wind and Fire recommendation.
My main issue with 50 Cent is that this is the album he should have released years ago. When was the last time 50 Cent saw a gun? When was the last time he even smoked a doobie?
The guy sells water with vitamins in it. He wrote a self help book. He's releasing a cologne. The guy isn't killing people anymore.
It's funny because people criticize Jay-Z for the exact opposite thing, that he doesn't do songs like he used to. Jay-Z doesn't write songs about selling crack anymore because he doesn't sell crack anymore. He writes songs about being 30 something and taking a lot of vacations.
50 Cent is interesting because in a very short amount of time he has become one of the richest musicians of the 21st century. He could be playing polo in District 9 or some other exotic stuff, but instead he takes a 2 second monotonous loop and puts it on repeat for three minutes so he can talk about being in the streets and not being in the streets at the same time.
He writes a love song to his gun? For starters, 2Pac already did it, and Jay-Z already covered it. If I listen to this song, am I going to play it for my pistol, maybe make my Glock a mixtape for its birthday?
So what's left? Entertainment value? That's basically Eminem's whole gimmick, but at least he has talent in delivery, pronunciation, and flow.
50 Cent has his melodies, which is what sets him apart from other rappers. He has a way of making a song very catchy and clever, and before you know it, he's got you humming along. "Go shorty, it's your birthday." Unfortunately, that was a long time ago. The fact that he has not progressed is unfortunate, because he's a gimmick musician who's running out of gimmicks.
The reason I like songs like Baby By Me and Could Have Been You is because they're funny. It's all a big joke. 50 Cent gets it. And to be honest, the rest of the songs on this CD are a joke too, just not delivered as well. When he says that he needs his gun to hold him down, he is not being serious. But if the music is lame, or uninteresting, then why should I bother?
And 50 Cent is obviously a very interesting person. But because of this whole notion of what a 50 Cent album should be, he keeps milking the gangster cow. Why is it that the richest man in hip hop writes the most rudimentary, offensive, unnecessary songs?
Why does 50 Cent refuse to be a musician? He has all the opportunities in the world. He is progressive and intelligent in all of his other business moves. Maybe it's because, like Diddy, like Jay-Z, he knows that there's no money in music anymore, at least not for him. It's just for guys like Souljah Boy who spend 20 bucks making an album and become so rich off of one track that they put out videos on youtube showing them blow their noses with $20's and riding around their two story condo on a Segway.
I'm impressed this album even came out, after 50 Cent released two dud singles (Get Up and I Get It In, really strong titles by the way, especially to match the strong music they represent) he was delayed a year. In fact, he was delayed even more because this was supposed to be his third album and the record company wouldn't let him release it and instead he had to make music with Akon and Timbaland/Timberlake.
I would be very surprised to see 50 Cent put out more albums. He killed himself just like he killed Ja Rule, and of course, he is being replaced by someone with even less street cred than him, Rick Ross, who has actually admitted to being a cop before selling cocaine.
Also, I thought Curtis was one of the worst albums of all time.
Many thanks.
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