- Label
- Shady/Aftermath/Interscope
- Release date
- 16th November 2009
- Genre
- Hip-hop
- Buy this album
- Order CD
It's been six years since 50 Cent emerged with irresistible gangsta anthem In Da Club and since then his career has largely been a series of diminishing returns.
After his last album, 2007's Curtis, was a commercial flop, Fiddy now returns with a follow-up, complete with accompanying self-produced movie, which finds him back in default mode.
This means street braggadocio, lyrical boasts of being "bigger, stronger and angrier" than ever, and more N-words than a Ku Klux Klan convention. Opener The Invitation finds Fiddy grunting "You want some? Come get some?" like a pub closing-time car-park drunk, while Death To My Enemies begins, with grinding predictability, with the click of an automatic weapon loading.
Yet the gangsta posturing is too pantomime to be offensive and fails because 50 Cent remains a cumbersome boor and trite rapper. It's hard to imagine a more charmless line than Baby By Me's: "Have a baby by me, be a millionaire."
Eminem guests on the abrasive Psycho and the ease and dexterity of his flow shows up his host's lumpen limitations. Fiddy is back on da street... and still firing blanks.
More to try:
Eminem: Relapse
DMX: ...And Then There Was X
The Game: LAX
