Murder on the ears
CD review: The Massacre by 50 Cent (Interscope)
What's da beef? Gangsta rap has elevated macho posturing to ridiculous levels. And within this sadistic, ghetto-gang-banging swagger-verse you’d be hard pushed to find someone who trades so heavily on violence, who has turned a propensity for getting shot – a ludicrous nine times – into a career, as former crack dealer Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson. His last album, Get Rich or Die Tryin', sold a staggering 11 million copies, accountable chiefly to the infectious party anthem In Da Club. As an exercise in cynical marketing manipulation, The Massacre is genius: “Fiddy” delivers what his fanbase wants in spades, or, likelier, rounds. But behind the blustering bravado, tedious avarice, and tiresome gun fetishism lurks the flow of a ... lacklustre, unimaginative plodder. Envisage 78 minutes of G-funk, booming loops and melodramatic strings married to the repetitive rat-tat-tat rattle of gunfire, if you will. No?
Hot in Herre! The singles are mid-tempo grinder Candy Shop; the lumpen Disco Inferno; and standout track, the tense, Dr. Dre-produced Out of Control. Elsewhere, Ski Mask Way lays down a slinky funk groove.
Get Off! 'Fiddy' was bottled offstage in the UK in 2004 by the notoriously merciless Reading Festival crowd. 
Many of the hurled bottles contained urine. One mischievous punter even threw a deckchair. Although 50 Cent reportedly tossed his mic into the crowd in anger (or perhaps recognition that the average punter would fare better with it than he), the rapper later took it in good humour. As well he might: he picked up a phat payday for 15 minutes and one second's 'work' (15 minutes is the minimum stage time an artist must perform to get paid).
Critical Quibbling:
--“Jackson is no big shakes as a rapper, but as a lyricist he's a disaster. He can't do metaphors – at one juncture he claims to have the dancefloor ‘hot as a tea kettle’ – and his idea of humour involves referring to fellatio as ‘licking the lollipop’. He can't even insult people properly.” – Alexis Petridis, The Guardian
-- “You are required to forgive 50's shortcomings – namely his egomania and apparent lack of a conscience. Most rappers (like, say, Jay-Z) hold out the illusion that, underneath all the tough talk, they're basically good guys; with 50, you're not so sure.” – Nathan Brackett, Rolling Stone
-- Published by In Residence, 2005