The Top Is so Much Better Than the Bottom (Yet More Boring)

Back in the late 90’s, my go to rap guy handed me a mix tape with one of the most entertaining songs I had heard in a while, How to Rob, by the then unknown 50 Cent. Since then 50 dropped classic mix tape one after another earning the title as the greatest underground MC. Then he finally got his chance after being discovered by Eminem who introduced 50 to the world on the soundtrack of his own big screen debut, 8 Mile.

Less than four years later, 50 is ready to hit the big screen himself with his own semi-autobiographical film, Get Rich or Die Trying. But where the 8 Mile Soundtrack only featured two songs from the star, 50 turned his soundtrack to his movie into essentially a G-Unit album without any rappers that aren’t part of his crew. This was a bad idea because 8 Mile brought in heavy hitters like Nas, Jay-Z, and Rakim, Get Rich or Die Trying gets weighed down by 50’s friends who makes George Bush’s accusations of cronyism pale in comparison to 50 bring in his third rate crew to the album.

The soundtrack starts off with 50’s attempt to write his own Lose Yourself with Hustlers Ambition. But where Slim Shady wrote the song in response to critic who said he couldn’t write a curse-free song, every fifth word Hustlers Ambition needs to be censored on the radio which makes me wonder why and station or MTV would play it. But for the rest of the album, most of the songs have a curse word as much as every third word. A wide man once said it’s easy to get your point across by cursing; it takes a real wordsmith to do the same without cursing. Obviously 50 likes taking easy way out.

And there in lies the problem with 50 these days. When he was unknown he was hungry, and his is music showed it and that carried over to his first major label released Get Rich or Die Trying, not to be confused with the Soundtrack of the same name. But since then he has become complacent in his rap, content to just rehash everything he has done before rather than to push his music further. This is most relevant on What If which sound much like How to Rob but instead of taking about how he would rob famous people, he instead name drops his peers taking about how lame he would be if he imitated them. Sadly he doesn’t realize he is now just a pale imitation of himself when he was relevant.

50 isn’t the only member of G-Unit who likes to rehash previous hits. On Don’t Need No Help, Young Buck rehashes the famous the classic NWA refrain, **** tha police more often than Ice Cube did on the original fifteen years ago. There is even more police bashing on the anti-snitch I Don’t Know Officer. Yawn.

Of course 50 has a bunch of songs that are reminiscing of In da Club and Candy Shop, the songs that got him on TRL in the first place with potential club hits such as We Both Think Alike, Best Friend, and Have a Party, which is bogged down by that annoying G-g-g-g-g-Unit chant every five seconds. Lloyd Bank$ even raps “I’m TRL next to Avril Lavigne” on Born Alone, Die Alone as if that’s an accomplishment. All that means is that your target audience is now fourteen year old white. So if you are not a fourteen year old white girl, you need to stay away from the Get Rich or Die Trying Soundtrack.

Song to Download – You Already Know (This is only because it has the best beat. You would be better off saving your money)

Get Rich or Die Trying Soundtrack gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.