Sound Advice: CD Reviews - 50 Cent Get (Rich Or Die Tryin')

CD Review:
What is best needed with this album is a step back. There are two types of promotion for a record when that promotion overshadows the record itself. The first type is where the album has no artistic merit and therefore flash is needed to sell the thing. Best compared to a movie where the best and only good scenes are in the trailer. It usually occurs when a band is the fabrication of a record company looking to benefit from a trend.

The second type of promotion is where marketing is used to create an image. The album has merit but with an image surrounding it, sales can move from 500,000 to 6 to 10 million.

Get Rich or Die Tryin' is the latter example and that is why a pause is needed before looking at this album. You need to put aside the hype. You need to put aside the shooting in Jamaica and all the MTV over exposure. You need to put aside the hoopla surrounding the feud with Ja Rule. You need to forget about 50's hard life on the streets of Jamaica and his run ins with the law. You need to forget about all that and listen to the rap!

And once you do, you will realize that this album is still utter crap. Just as grunge hit its wall in the mid to late nineties (for the actual true music listener) Gangsta rap is doing the same in the 2000s. Eminem hit it big (i'm no fan but), not so much on the gang, gun, and drug lifestyle, but with writing on domestic violence and social criticism. Gansta rap has been done over and over since rap moved from New York into LA 15-20 years ago (NWA etc.) and it has dried up. 50 Cent is treading over much used territory and because of that he is nothing original.

Sales will still go well just because of his street cred. (at least he is not a wankster as his song describes). He is, or was, a hustler, drug dealer and all around bad guy before he became rich on the hype. The problem now is how, with all the loot, is he going to mellow out without losing the cred that made him a star in the first place. Maybe a bullet will solve all that or maybe he will get some good advice from Dre. who made the transition without too much fuss.

Although this album glorifies all that is wrong with mainstream hip hop in the United States, just as "Lose Yourself" by Eminem is a favourite song of mine (Em finally uses his skill in a positive way and the result is fantastic) "In Da Club" is a great tune for the more mellow lifestyle. Will he be like 'Pac as he wants to in the song? Time will tell. But if he used the mood and the point he is putting forth in the song as a personal mantra for his future life (ie. relaxing and enjoying himself (he deserves some much needed relief)) he might make it past his 27th birthday.

Scott D. Brown