Author: Max Weidman
At first I was worried. The projections have Kanye beating 50 Cent out by something like 50-100,000 album sales. The intro of 50’s album Curtis comes from some movie I’ve never heard of called Shooters, which sounds like a bad rip-off of a Guy Ritchie flick. Then, for the first three tracks, 50 treads water: about “My Gun Go Off” I can only say that no, it didn’t; “I’m Still Kill” reassured me that Akon is catchy as hell but as for the eponymous Curtis . . . things seemed bleak.
Then, four tracks in, the thing clicked. “I Get Money” sounds just the way a song from 50 Cent’s third album should sound. Granted, everybody already knows 50 is making mad cash and it seems a bit redundant at best. But then I listened to it again and I got in touch with the essential truth that helped me fall in love with the song and the album as a whole. All 50 has ever talked about, even stuff like the unreleased Power of the Dollar album, is getting money. This album is, on the grounds set by the man who vows retirement if he is outsold, a capitalist venture. A very pretty, well-produced and altogether enjoyable capitalist venture.
The Timberlake hook in “Ayo Technology” nicely sums up the song’s function: “She want it, I want to give it to her.” This song is for the club, because everybody wants to dance to a 50 song at some point in the night, and if you say you don’t you’re probably lying. The production will leave you convinced, if you’re not already, that Timbaland can do no wrong: the song sounds, during parts, like playing the arcade game Galaga, but it’s actually sexy.
“Straight To The Bank” is probably the most convincing song on the album. It doesn’t matter what you think, or what 50 says, because you will hear this song and he will profit from it. Because I am the kind of person who has, on occasion, bought the Vitamin Water he subsequently made millions off of, I practically hope he laughs at me on his way to the bank.A misplaced gem, “Curtis 187” is one of the few songs whose lyrical content matches the timber of 50’s voice, namely confident and disinterested. “Peep Show” is worth its weight in Eminem, who manages to talk filthier than he has in a while and make 50 look incompetent while doing it. “Fire” is useful only because it gives context to the claim “I run New York” from “I Get Money”: “You can hate this but face it / B.I.G and Tupac just ain’t around.”
And I hope the man stays on top. In the age of a mainstream hip-hop as metro-fashionable as Kanye West and MTV as cozy as 50, I would elect the latter as my dictator. Kanye is a whiner. How, Kanye, did you think your cut-rate “Touch the Sky” video was going to beat Justice and Simian’s “We Are Your Friends” at the MTV Europe VMAs? They’re European. You react to this by being a poor loser and killing their buzz by coming on stage and ranting. (Were you drunk, by the way?) Grow up. Like it or not, 50 is your daddy. And when the record sales from all over the world get tallied and 50 wins, you should show a little respect.
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