Listening to a 50 Cent album all the way through is a little like dropping in on a psychotherapy session where the patient has a multiple personality disorder. From one song to the next, it feels like a different person is behind the rapper’s exterior. At one point, we’re confronted with 50’s claims that he’s still ready to kill and his ever-living penchant for the “gat.” But on the next track, we get the pop 50, the smooth-talking club denizen who’d rather make duets with Justin Timberlake than shoot the place up.
The thing is, 50 is probably somewhere in the middle of these two personalities. And unlike the patient, who most likely doesn’t realize what’s going on, it’s pretty clear that 50 is putting on airs. And it’s understandable, too ““ he’s caught in the snare that grabs many hip-hop artists as they are catapulted from cooking grams in the kitchen to limos at the Grammys. 50 wants to stay hard, and he wants to sell records, but the problem is that one disc just doesn’t have enough room for these two personalities.
The result is that both personalities get exaggerated. Curtis opens with “My Gun Go Off,” a paean to solving problems with guns. 50 tells us about “making his eagle chirp” over a slickly produced metal guitar riff punctuated with bells that ring out with all the urgency of a daytime made-for-TV drama. On “Curtis 187,” a mockingly murderous baseline tiptoes under a guitar that pings out like radar ““ “they say I’m grimy, I’m greasy, I make a 187 look easy.” “Peep Show,” in addition to reminding us that every Eminem beat sounds the same, embodies that curious rap phenomenon of pairing overly dramatic music with trite rhyming.
The soft stuff takes it too far also. “Follow My Lead” sounds like a toy store with a backbeat, as chimes, music boxes and synth strings set the stage for lines like: “I told you I’m a don you gon’ know I’m a don/after you shop till your feet hurt in Milan.” “Amusement Park” loops a haunted house organ while 50 sells his wares: “Good evening ladies, I tell you from the start/I’m hoping you enjoy my amusement park/There’s lots of activities fun things to do/And now I find my pleasure in pleasing you.”
But it’s not all obnoxious. “All of Me,” which features Mary J. Blige crooning nymphomania over an unstoppable Jake One beat, shows what 50’s like when he’s not armed and dangerous. Brassy horns wash over a warm, vintage bass line with just enough strings on top to make the track burn like a hole in the ozone layer.
“Ayo Technology” shows how adaptable 50 can be as he twists his rhyme scheme and jumps on board the Timberlake-Timbaland consortium.
The problem with Curtis is that the hard 50 is overblown and the soft 50 is cheesy, not that 50 isn’t good. He’s got all the tools ““ syncopated delivery, a perfect rap voice, solid lyrics ““ but psychotherapy or no, it will probably take some choices about identity to make his music sound more like 50 and less like a caricature of an all-purpose rapper.
““ Alex LaRue
E-mail Phuong at tphuong@media.ucla.edu and LaRue at alarue@media.ucla.edu.