From about 1997-1998, Rap was dead. After losing two of it’s biggest superstars to gang shootings, Rap has seemed to lose all emotion and it’s fan base is at in all time low. The songs are all about sorrow about losing it’s two biggest superstars, and not enough about anger about losing them. This is a huge step back and someone needs to come and bring back raps atmosphere.
A white boy! In 1999, a white rapper named Eminem comes to the rap scene and makes a big splash with his lighting quick rhymes, hilarious lyrics, and his obsessive nature to kill anything that moves. After releasing one of the 90’s most important rap record in the “Slim Shady LP” and followed that by an even more impressive effort in the 21st century album, “The Marshall Mathers LP”.
After releasing those records, Eminem could have brought the world with all the money he had made. Instead the rich rapper brought a recording studio to record potential new artist with the man that discovered him Dr. Dre. This plan started in about 2002, and rap fans waited to see who the first signing of the band would be.
If we knew anything, we knew that this rapper was going to have to have some crazy potential and good rhymes to boot. Maybe the rappers would accept some big names such as Snoop Dog or someone to boost the labels reputation up even more. Instead the label selected little known rapper “50 Cent”, to be there big signed singer. While the rappers smiled after they made there selection the world was in a state of confusion, who was 50 Cent? He must be the biggest undiscovered talent in the world? Instead they got some mediocre rhymes and lackluster structure in 50’s previous albums. So the question was what did these rap legends see in this man?
What they saw was were 50 Cent came from, a place were he got shot 3 times, was in gangs at an early age, and had to sell drugs to get his family money. They knew if they could get that intense of a 50 Cent along with how laid-back he was in his other raps, they would have one of the biggest rappers in the 21st century.
And the men look like geniuses after 50 Cent’s first record was released to the public in 2003. The album combined the gangster life style of the life before rapping with the crystal wine club style of rapping. See before this all other rappers would just use one style or another in a record but never had they ever used both, it was almost like something unheard of. But 50 Cent did it due to good production. And it’s apparent on the single, “In Da Club”, were 50 raps about get his but wasted to a great beat that his rhymes fit perfectly in with. When 50 Cent raps about his past combined with his present this album is a classic.
“Patiently Waiting”, track 3 features 50 collaborating with Eminem and these two rappers feeding off each other perfectly and Em cracking some of the most lethal surrounding rap rhymes that I have heard in a while 50 raps the chorus. The first thought when hearing this song is: “Wow 50 really works well with other people”. And this is the truth since 50 Cent has been in so many rap battles in his past this really works out to perfection. On “P.I.M.P.” 50 Cent gets a laid back beat and wants a superstar to rap with him, who other then the king of “Let it Chill”, Snoop Dog. Snoop and 50 compliment each other and some hot chicks perfectly in this single and it works out nicely.
So you just heard when 50 Cent was at his best when he rapping about his gangster and club life, while busting some rhymes with a couple friends he knows from the record company. But there are times were this album just seems to be poppy with songs such as “21 Questions”, 50 seems to be more focused on creating the perfect single than he does preaching about how to shoot people to death, or how to act in the club. The song talks about what seems a fictional relationship, and though it made for a nice TRL song 50 rants don’t really fit well on this album. Also, when 50 try’s to be to gangster and goes over the edge. I have never liked the song “Wanksta”, because 50 tries to combine gangster hood to the extreme with hoes and it just doesn’t work. 50 Cent acts like he is the biggest gangster of all time in this song, which can somehow be said as a false statement and the song ends up being a cry out for help more than anything.
There is a lot of bad tracks on here, but they are somewhat overshadowed by all the good tracks. The "Intro" was only 6 seconds long which takes some credibility away from the track, and "What Up Gangsta" seems like it is just leading into the next track were 50 and Eminem rap together. "HEAT" didn't do anything new with the gunshots in the background do baciscally nothing new. "High All The Time", is another pointless rap song about getting high and some off 50's lines don't even rhyme.
But this comes with all the good tracks I talked about above and some more. "If I Can't", shows off 50's weird confidence about himself, probably from being able to survive 3-9 gun shots. "Many Men [Wish Death}", is the best song on the album, it features the most serious rhymes and the overall sound of the song matches those lines. "Don't Push Me", again shows 50 confidence rhyming to probably the weirdest beat of the album and is a song that doesn't sound to mainstream, so it is a nice song.
I think this album had a pretty big affect on me when it was first released. It made me get deep into rap, research it’s history and realize not all of it is crap [Even though most of it following this record is]. It also made me want to be a rapper [laughs], and showed me a different side of life that I never thought I would see at the age of 11. So, this is a pretty important record in Rap history and in Chopin history.
After this record Rap has hit a major speed bump and blew out all of it’s tires. 50 Cent’s new record is dreadful and seems like it has no motivation at all in the writing of the songs. Eminem latest efforts have gone weary with him still singing about killing his wife and such. Most rappers have gotten to in to the club scene of 50 rap, which proves they only heard one single from this album. Rap has become to much of a lifestyle rather than music and it’s getting to a point that most people that have over 300 songs on there I tunes tend to ignore it.
The record is not perfect but it showed rap that we can combine club rap and gangster rap, and how good of a producer Dre is. Even though not much Rap has been successful after this I still can recall this record being quite a consistent record, or whatever that means for rap. A important album for the rap community and myself.
Tracks I would download:
Patiently Waiting
P.I.M.P.
In Da Club
If I Can’t
Don’t Push Me
Many Men
