Kanye is preppy. Eminem is goofy. Jigga is retired. Cube, Andre, and Big Boi are acting.
50 Cent could well adopt an exclamation of his mentor Dr. Dre on N.W.A.'s “Express Yourself:” “It's crazy to see people be who society wants them to be but not me!” While the rap scene around him has begun to cater to the masses, 50 Cent still raps about the menacing life that he lived in Queens, New York. Indeed, 50 Cent's adherence to this lifestyle may be his undoing. Amidst feuds with a dozen other rappers, the once crack-dealing, nine-times-shot, club-loving 50 Cent revels in his world of drugs and violence on his new record The Massacre. While not as accessible as his debut, the LP's rough corners and heavy beats only accentuate its overtly dark theme.
On “In My Hood,” 50 describes the life that surrounded him for years, a startling scene of violence and hopelessness. He raps, “Get hit wit’ AK rounds/ ya ass ain’t gonna make it/ You bitches’ll get laid out/ wit’ blood and ya brains out.”
A later track “A Baltimore Love Thing” creates a horrifying image. 50 Cent raps over a slow, eerie sample. He speaks from the perspective of heroin, yelling vindictively at a junkie who's trying to quit, “Now put that needle to your arm princess, stick it in / relapse, back bitch don't ever try that again.”
50 Cent’s dance tracks shine against these darker themes. For every song chronicling the horrors of his former life, there is a thumping beat begging to be blared in the club like the first two singles “Candy Shop” and “Disco Inferno.” While they might ruin your subwoofer at home, the songs’ bass-driven, sexual rhymes will be pounding on the dance floor for months to come.
On The Massacre, 50 Cent looms as a Street Prophet, who chronicles the anguishing lows and ecstatic highs of a life spent confronting death. But 50 Cent is no philosopher: his egomania leads him to glorify the life he lived and escaped. The Massacre is a solid rap album. Though it breaks no new ground, it does forcefully restate the same themes gangsta rap has encountered since Straight Outta Compton.
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