Do the 50 Cent sagas draw you towards him, or away? How much do you buy into an artist's mythology?

The rest of 50 Cent (apart from his music) seems to me to be brilliant or evil record promo genius, depending on your POV.

(which is not to say that sometimes this "wider dimension of performance" isn't timesome and lame, or just a Bad Thing)

My point is that I'm not sure why it should matter, one way or another.

Also I think we need to differentiate between mythology, non-music related activities (eg Fiddy getting shot, Britney getting married, Fiona Apple getting raped), and mythology, a deliberately cultivated back story or image which may or may not be wholly true (MIA and Nellie McKay spring to mind). The former are fun to take an interest in, especially if they impinge on the music. The latter are quite complex and I find them fascinating - they strip away certain ambiguities at the same time as creating new ones...

I'm also quite turned off by his recent Reebok ad. Picture of him on the left, and a picture of police fingerprint blotter on the right, under the inscription "I am What I Am!" OOoooooh....yeah, it's cool to be a felon, isn't it. Fuck all that stuff.

I don't know if folks that are into the "punk rock" (like Alex) should be all indignantly "fuck it" when a rap artist uses a not-dissimilar reprobate counter-culture stance to sell records (scale & type of reprobate behavior notwithstanding) (never the scale of the demographic being targeted) - hate it or love it (the music) on that level, go w/ whomever, but look out when you go off that script to throw other stones.

alex: i didn't see the clip, but from your description its pretty obvious that 50's actual point was that his current beefs aren't well-timed ploys created to sell records. nice spin though.

Also, I'm hardly about to jump up and defend this album, which i think is pretty blah, but all the "50's not a good rapper!" shit is just...wrong. He's a great rapper. Who just released an average-at-best album.

With the possible exception of the Stranglers and Cop Shoot Cop, none of my favorite artists -- "punk rock" or otherwise -- make a big deal about their respective criminal records (or have any to begin with). By saying "fuck it," I'm simply bristling at what a ridiculously juvenile cliche it all is. Who needs that stuff? And who really cares?

alex: i didn't see the clip, but from your description its pretty obvious that 50's actual point was that his current beefs aren't well-timed ploys created to sell records. nice spin though.

It's not spin, it's verbatim.

Why would you ask something like this? More people care than have heard of killing joke.

Which means what? That makes it right? WHY do people care that he's supposedly been shot a bazillion times? Does that make his music better? Gimme a break.

(ps i think the answer is a mixture of both) (feebly enough)

I think there's a difference between being a lunatic who likes to cut himself up and being a gun-toting, self-professed gangsta. One poses a threat only to himself, whereas the other....

(and self-destruction actually does HURT others, who we may have no particular knowledge of) (like maw and paw osterberg eg)

but yes actually i agree alex: i wasn't posting this point to put you on the spot, i was posting to it to open up the "mythology" question to more than just 50cents, who seems a bit of a special case

(ever since aaron burr shot alexander hamilton!!!!)

(the end of the first great american movie = a cowboy shooting out at the audience 102 years ago!!)

WHY do people care that he's supposedly been shot a bazillion times? Does that make his music better? Gimme a break.

You could easily say the same thing about The KLF. Does the fact that they wrote a brilliant book about "Doctorin' the Tardis" going to #1 actualy make that a better single? Well, maybe not, but then it does change your view of the intentions of the single, the creators behind it, etc, and probably makes it more respectable than just some sampldelia one-off cash-in.

You could say the same thing about 50--the fact that he was shot nine times and survived adds to his persona and makes him seem more cool/badass/whatever, which is undeniably an important aspect of his music as well, and makes singles like "Wanksta" or "P.I.M.P." infinitely more credible.

1) The students in peepee's class (and a nice swath of the 10+ million folks that have have glommed onto 50's Dre-aided pop appeal, regardless of / because of his "shot 9 times" image)

2) Folks in the hip-hop community concerned over this 50 / Game nonsense being the precursor to another East / West tragedy that'll besmirch the good & worth in hip-hop

3) Critics & fans fascinated by 50's charismatic anti-charisma

4) Folks that care by expressing a vehement interest in not caring (cf. the "who gives a shit?" rhetoric, which is the "bad press" in the "all press = good press' equation)

Also - semantics aside, there's definitely something to be said about "punk rock" artists of ALL STRIPES (the real, the fake, and the WTF) using punk's "ride or die thug life" stance and image to their advantage (cf. mark's Iggy example) (cf. Sting & Co.) (cf. GG Allin) (cf. mall-punk & its predecessors).

[probably a super-redundant x-post, but I'll submit regardless]

all the great batman villains are also conceptual artists!! (this meme ©a douglas wolk post at ILC) (except sorta monkeyed w.by me): best way to understand lotsa rappers = to think of em as batman villains?

"will probably lap this up too."

you bet they will!

OK, well this is a worthwhile point, but it's not the one you were just making (re: "does that make his music better?"). Once you get into that, it's just a matter of opinion, and I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who find getting shot nine times far more interesting than subversive chart literature, thrash metal covers and other conceptual art.

OK, well this is a worthwhile point, but it's not the one you were just making (re: "does that make his music better?")

Well, technically, the KLF's backstory doesn't make their music any better either. It's just window dressing, as is 50 Cent's "bullet wounds = credibility" shtick.

Well, yeah, I think everyone (mercifully) did! Dude (& dudes) did work the leather-jacket blonde-spike grrrr-ruff don't-bring-home-to-mum angle, tho.

Maybe his collab w/ Puffy was Sting's Thug Life Redux!

good backstory (even if made up) may make eg for better interviews, for those artists whose interviews are always a part of the act worth checkin out (also of course lame or clichéd backstory may make for tedious interviews)

Fair points, but the music should speak for itself. The backstory should simply serve to augment the appeal, not eclipse the appeal.

i mean yes the music shd speak for itself in the sense that good "window-dressing" totally doesn't make bad music good, but if the music is poor but the "window dressing" is terrific then i'm a happy punter!! i don't think there's a "proper" one-size-fits-all hierarchy of what matters-in-the-final-analysis, just a bunch of pretexts and "the thing itself"s which difft artists juggle differently

esp.as it generally costs less to follow the act in question!

(warhorse m.mclaren quote i always wheel out at some point: "the REAL fans aren't buying the single!")

This is so stupid. Someone got shot. Do you understand?

It seems like Alex's problem is a matter of identification; he sees himself as the victims w/r/t 50 cent, whereas he identifies w/ the punk or the KLF's creative auteurism etc.

this is a thought that deserves to be developed, it's v astute and I immediately began thinking of how it could be applied to many other musical reaction situations.

I'm still uncomfortable with the KLF/50 Cent comparison. The KLF's story is rather patently ludicrous (part of their appeal) as were their wilfully absurdist tactics. 50 Cent, by contrast, lives by the "keepin' it real" code. The Iggy/50 Cent comparison makes more sense.

double xp

If anything, the countercultural posturing of early 80s punk is rather tired at this point, and the whole discourse of authenticity around it. (Not that i'm saying you fall for that stuff either, but most ppl i know whose taste falls in yr general area do)

Indeed it is, but maybe you should point that out to Good Charlotte, Blink 182, the Ataris, Franz Ferdinand, the Rapture, the Futureheads, Sum 41, Bloc Party, etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum

People don't seem tired of crime dramas a hundred years after "elementary my dear watson," what makes you think its tired in hip-hop?

Because once upon a time, there was more to Hip Hop than simply crime drama.

I would rather baste myself in honey and throw myself into a mess of fire ants.

[x-postage due!]

Well, of course there is, but SO MUCH of contemporary hip hop is still caught up in trappings of crime drama.

http://www.billboard.com/bb/charts/hot100.jsp

Hey, if that gets me a photo with John Reis that could be fun!

Is it safe to say that "youth culture w/ values & mores supposedly at odds w/ adult culture" = "countercultural"?

*thinks* So is hip-hop in the stage where thirty years after rock and roll (ha-hem) 'started' there was mid-eighties paranoia still over its evil ways? (Admittedly concentrating mostly on heavy metal.)

Not really, because in my book, the whole "youth culture" thang has been mostly co-oped by adults making a easy (and abundant) buck off of it.

...and that a huge percentage of it is bought and consumed by suburban white males.

"Because at heart, hiphop remains a radical, revolutionary enterprise for no other reason than its rendering people of African descent anything but invisible, forgettable, and dismissible in the consensual hallucination-simulacrum twilight zone of digitized mass distractions we call our lives in the matrixized, conservative-Christianized, Goebbelsized-by-Fox 21st century."

http://www.ccf.org.fj/gallery/at_the_cross_roads/2/old_white_guys_speaks_ccf_forum_at_the_cross_roads.jpg

Here's where I would want to map punk rock masochism and hip hop thug sadism onto economics, and map economics and race in (circular, I admit) terms of each other. (More or less) affluent suburban white kids can either disavow their wealth as a class and its attendant guilt by slumming and buying into the squatter punk / crusty / street kid image (or take their sense of hopelessly stifling complicity in the legacy of slavery all the way and feel that there is no way that a white person can "thrive" that isn't inherently tainted by a racist past, cf Minor Threat "Guilty of Being White", Black Flag "White Minority" etc.), or they can enjoy their wealth openly but disavow the attendant white guilt by singing along with bling lyrics extolling the luxury goods that their parents have bought for straight up bourgeois conspicuous consumption reasons and which aspirational thug rappers as validation or proof of success/arrival. This second scenario isn't any more or less phony/painful/overdetermined/complex than the first- they just deal with the boo hoo burden of privilege differently. But then it's hard to tease/mock this dynamic without falling into a "pretty fly for a white guy" schtick that seems to suffer from its own anxiety- oh no, now white kids like black art, let's panic . . . etc.

50's 'mythology' is not particularly interesting to me but that's pretty irrelevant to how much i like(d) 'In Da Club' in the end. he's one of many MCs using what they've got to ghettout which is fair enough under the circumstances, but why he be so rated over others still baffles me somewhat, other than there's this quiet acceptance everywhere that there's got to be someone on that pedestal, the more bullethole-ridden the better.

As far as 50 goes, his music leaves me cold. I'd rather listen to Nas or Freeway or Ludacris or the vintage pimposity of Big Daddy Kane or Biggie or just about anyone else. 50 has a nice voice, but he could do a lot more with it. His beatmakers are pretty uninspired, imo, but the kids seem to like it.

Isn't the usual progression for the eventual subsumption of subculture into larger whole sorta like:

1) Counterculture emerges from primordial ooze
2) Counterculture gains buzz & attention from disenfranchised folk (i.e. folks that don't cotton to what predominant culture is offering, which is usually, but not totally, emblematic of the adult / teen schism) (cf. mark's assertion)
3) Old people w/ money see young people w/ money feeding into counterculture, have 30-watt GE moment
4) Old people cash in on counterculture's cache, start pimping it out to folks not already in the loop
5) Counterculture eventually / immediately becomes part of cultural fabric it once countered
6) For the most part, everyone goes along w/ the dog-&-pony show (re: the counterculture continuing to pose as counterculture, & folks selling it as such)

And, of course:
2a-6a) Folks bitch ignorantly / debate intelligently about counterculture's corrosive / beneficial influence

Of course, this is a super-reductive view of the thing w/ the thing.

I was only talking about the comparative dynamics of middle class teen consumption of punk rock and hip hop vis a vis their class privilege/guilt, NOT claiming that the US consists only of middle class teens. (though there's a TV show pitch in that idea, now that I think of it . . . . oh wait, the WB has already staged that fantasy universe) But am I prone to sweeping generalizations today? Yep, cuz they're fun and trashy. This IS the internet, you know . . .

anyway, sorry, just explaining

Killing Joke ARE old white guys.

Exactly.

djdee - I really don't think making money = not countercultural, but there is the "crossing over" aspect that, ideally, leads to the big $$$ (&, probably more importantly, the $$$ made apart from the music being sold - the endorsement deals & such that are endemic of the CC's infiltration / acceptance into the dominant C).

i don't think this (mis)perception — which gained force mainly from extreme novelty (plus unprecedented sales scale)— has serious echoes in any subsequent bcz subsequent decades have ALWAYS had to fight against (and define themselves through) 60s values

it wd almost make more sense to say "it DOES make money" = "counter-cultural", in the sense that choices and forces exist which are purely profits-related, rather than "artistic" (or expressive or communicative or creative)

i don't think either is true

OTM.

As if sales are some iron-clad indication of quality?

alex how relevant is your opinion on how 50 cent's "drama" affects his music if you so clearly hate him in the first place?

Who said I hated him? Believe me, when I hate an artist -- you'll know it! I'm more depressed by 50 Cent, because I find his music and his message so generic and rote.

x-post

Alex, are you having trouble reading? This was in reference to someone saying his "15 minutes are up" as if he wasn't going to be around, and I'm suggesting that, you know, earth-shattering sales suggest he'll be around for more than a minute.

Yeah, I hear ya, dj. Maybe that sort of Sisyphusian cycle w/ hip-hop - first w/ the initial salvo, then w/ rock crossover, then w/ gangsta rap, then w/ G-funk, then w/ Eminem (and I know I'm missing a bunch of benchmarks) is emblematic of hip-hop's perennial status (to the greater populus) as a pop music "underdog".

IRONIC BASEBALL ANALOGY ALERT: it's like hip-hop is music's answer to the Red Sox. Team has the 2nd largest payroll in baseball, & play in the 2nd largest baseball market (I imagine), yet (up until last year) have been painted by the press at large as the scrappy underdog to the Yankees' dominant champion because they (the Sox) never won the Big Game. & even though the Sox finally won a World Series last year, they're still going to pale in light of the Yankees TWENTY SIX WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS.

Of course, hip-hop being looked @ like this (esp. in light of its pop dominance of late) (late = 5-10-15 years!) (damn you guys are too quick!) is endemic of some seedier ingrained ign'ant old-fart race-related booshit, & damned if I know what hip-hop will need to do to "win" in the eyes of the "oh, it's a fad" folks. (Then again, folks that poo-poo on the rock music in light of "real music" - Sinatra, Beethoven - are just crotchety old piles that can't deal w/ "the truth", so maybe it's the same thing in hip-hop's case.)

I want to read one of Alex's last posts as: "Killing Joke ARF old white guys".

Dumber than a bag of hammers LIKE A FOX!

Also, I have no problems believing he's really fucking stupid because he got shot 9 times. I don't know, wouldn't you think that after time #3 you'd say, "Hmm, perhaps I should look into doing something that doesn't invlove so many bullets being fired in my direction"?

Ha - my favorite tracks from GRODT (last time I listened to it) are the non-"Wanksta" bonus bits at the end! (Though that might have more to do w/ single overkill than anything.)

(xpost)

So current sales are a guarantor of career longevity? In hip-hop? Even by your standards, blount, this is an absurd stance.

So current sales are a guarantor of career longevity? In hip-hop? Even by your standards, blount, this is an absurd stance.

It was me that said that, and he was the biggest-selling hip-hop artists since snoop dogg who - whoa! - is still all over the place culturally. The idea that 50 Cent's "15 minutes" are up, like the public doesn't have a massive fascination with his music as if his new album isn't going to sell fuckloads is just ridiculous.

I was about to say, Djdee, aren't you having it both ways here? "He's huge and popular and god these songs are great and uh if you don't like those there are the rarities!"
I love some of the popular singles too! Especially his MOST popular single, "In Da Club." And I wasn't saying those singles were BAD, just that they give a more one-dimensional picture of him as an MC than actually exists. And the album tracks are hardly "rarities"!!!

(IOW, get one reading comprehension)

geeze, tough crowd!

That's because it basically IS a fuckin' ringtone.

Honestly, "Candy Shop" is doing more to make me want to listen to 50's first album than anything he released off of his first album.

I'm sorry, peepee, for not engaging with your original thread question at all; I think an artist's image is inextricable from their music and, especially with corporation-backed artists, it doesn't make any sense to consider the music outside of the marketing hook used to get you interested in it.

(xpost, slocki + blount OTM)

"Hi! Have you accepted 50 Cent in your heart as your favorite emcee? Please, take this pamphlet."

Seriously, Mark P has just proved the goddamn point! What the HECK is with you folks?

Give it time dude. There's someone out there saying that RIGHT NOW except the movie of choice is Scarface.

the word "counterculture" needs to go. as a word it frankly makes no sense (um, a culture that's against...culture? er wait) and as a descriptor it's not much better. it's NEVER applied to um counter-cultures that aren't being valorized, that shouldn't by implication just BE culture, if all this other stuff wasn't so LAME.

um, no. MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice to thread please - sales have never been any indication of longevity, it's kinda silly to argue this, I think.

Why do I think 50's dumb? Well aside from what Dan pointed out about getting shot nine times being indicative of stupidity (and indeed it is), juding from the MTV interview, singles, etc. the guy just has no INSIGHT. He connects everything back to some basic (and to me, by now completely boring) ideas - rap as the street hustler's ticket out of the ghetto/drug dealing, and by extension, making money. That's pretty much the be-all and end-all of his intellectual worldview, those are his boundaries. And seeing as how those boundaries have been very well-established and over-mined in the past, oh, I dunno, 15-20 years, if I'm gonna hear more of that POV, it's gotta be backed up by great beats, amazing lyrics, powerful delivery, some idiosyncratic character fluorishes maybe - 50s got none of that, from what I've heard. So his monochromatic music coupled with this pedestrian heard-it-a-million-times-before schtick is just... boring.

x-post

50 has already had more hits than most artists have in an entire career.

x-post

I don't think anyone's saying he's an on-top-of-it singles genius, Ned; in the other thread, I said I thought his two recent non-Game related singles sucked. I'm just not about to dismiss his entire career on the basis of those tracks, particularly because i think he's done a lot of stuff worth hearing!

You know what? I'm perfectly comfortable dismissing his entire career on the basis of those tracks because the function of a single is to get people to buy your album; I know that oftentimes the best songs never even see the light of day off of an album but if the singles evoke out-and-out antipathy in you, what incentive do you have to go through the album unless you're obsessive/compulsive?

I think that the fact that I HATED three of those singles and was ambivalent towards the fourth means it's completely rational and expected that I would avoid 50 Cent as best I could. I don't see why stating this is so controversial or why people can't comprehend that I don't care that they like him or that his album tracks are better than his singles.

I'll happily tell this to anyone. You know why it's boring? BECAUSE EVERYONE DOES IT.

x-post

What a shockingly new and bold statement to say about liking someone. I could say the same thing about the Cure's music but if someone tells me "Hey, I've heard the singles and they did nothing for me," then I'm not about to waste my time twisting myself into rhetorical knots trying to say "You just need to hear the stuff you haven't heard and suddenly you'll magically be a fan!" Good lord. (And the Cure have had their singles that don't work, before someone tries to play that card.)

x-post

THANK you. My god in heaven, how is it that some people here who I really respect in terms of their approach to things are missing this key point?

my linguistic beef will not be answered, will it.

Slocki, what are you seriously not getting here?

He came on this thread and basically said "50 cent sucks, i don't like his music and its not worth hearing." I disagreed, and asked what music he heard; I said

"Well, I think that yr characterization of his style as one-dimensional is pretty far off, although i can see how someone who's heard just "PIMP" and "21 Questions" and "Candy Shop" would say that...but "Many Men" and "Ghetto Qu'ran" and "Gotta Make it To Heaven" and that new Game single "Hate it Or Love It" prove to me anyway that he's talented and also capable of making very moving music."

I even said "prove to me" I'm not trying to FORCE anyone to listen to anything!

That's nice, but I am really not interested. Thanks anyway!

haha dan who do you stay awake at nights wondering where you can find the magical song which will make you see all that is good and wonderful about them as a performer?

Echo & The Bunnymen, actually.

Hahaha yeah, that's EXACTLY what I said, isn't it.

It seems to me that what's being missed is simple -- if an artist doesn't provide enough reason to provoke further interest via what has been heard, expecting someone to leap at the chance to hear more is pretty damned strange.

I even said "prove to me" I'm not trying to FORCE anyone to listen to anything!

Hmmm.

ha, if only you'd said this about 100 posts ago...

anyway, i'm not so concerned about whether i buy into the mythology or not - i'm more concerned with the children (yes, the children insert weepy sally struthers voice here) who do.

*arches eyebrow*

I've heard some of his mixtape disses and wasn't really impressed; quite frankly, if I dislike the singles dude is putting out, what incentive do I have to track down harder-to-find rarities or album cuts?

I think it was said, yeah? Lying down is a fine idea, though.

I wasn't exactly too far from the truth, Dan!

And Ned...

It seems to me that what's being missed is simple -- if an artist doesn't provide enough reason to provoke further interest via what has been heard, expecting someone to leap at the chance to hear more is pretty damned strange.

I agree! Which is why I recommended he do so, because I found a lot of depth to his music! Although I find more depth in the singles than he does, so its entirely possible he wont like it.

Tell me, did you get whiplash when you pulled the 180 between those two statements?

xp to dan i'm not crucifying you for it! Why would you expect to come on this thread, say the artist in it is shit and then not expect me to say "i disagree"?

His name "represents change".

Not joking, he actually said this.

Dan: "I didnt like the singles so i'm not interested in his other work because i think it will be much of the same."

Me: "I would recommend checking out his other work, because i think it will add dimension to your impression of him"

Dan: "OMG WTF"

(x-post)

and we haven't even noted the comical misspelling/typo of "review" as "revue" yet.

Personally, I think the idea of pitchfork doing a 50 cent revue is rife with possibilities.

If we were only counting his influence with G-Unit, that would count for more than anough as a change in the rap scene. That's four of the most popular rappers in the country, right there, as a direct result of 50's success.

And that's not counting the influence 50's slurred / lazy vocal stylings have had on rap in recent years, or how the super-minimalism of his most popular tracks has influenced production, etc.

I, uh, meant to do that.

Snoop, Neptunes, Timbaland...

(x-post)

they were also very well established by the time they got around to 50.

(x-x-post)

shakey's right tho, 50 sucks

...

x-post

x-post

xxpp

xpxp

Nothing to do with 50, they're all standard Dre/Em beats.

(doesn't mean I like them any less)

I still find this quote deeply disturbing, and I do believe it was said without the slightest irony.

still his songs that made them so popular.

yeah maybe, but even so, implying that the beats would not have made hit songs w/out 50 is kinda ridiculous.

Gangsta chic is stupid and glorifies violence to boot. It's just some way of taking the stereotype about black males and making it marketable, thereby serving to reinforce it in the minds of not only prejudiced whites but young black males, many of whom sadly end up with nothing but that stereotype as their role model. Meanwhile kids who have absorbed the poisonous message give up and drop out of school, and the overall social status of the black community stagnates.

If you're going to tell me you have an interest in 50 cent or any of this kind of thing I would dearly hope it it's because you actually find some value in the music itself.

who let C. Dolores Tucker in here?

i say again w/o trace of irony: if the music is poor but the "window dressing" is terrific then i'm a happy punter!! this is actually not the same as saying [x]'s "window-dressing" is terrific by defn whoever they are (which i don't think)

i take yr point i guess about describing this very particular aspect of certain performers' shtick as "window dressing": however this wz alex's wordchoice not mine — hence the """s — and we were as much talkin abt the klf as anything

but my point remains: if you enjoy the window-dressing and not the music, what do you need the music for?

Incidentally, why has this thread taken so long to actually address the initial questions? Who cares which ILMers like 50 Cent and which ones don't? What was the actual point of that little clusterfuck upthread?

Actually he got shot in the EXACT same spot on his body nine times, but on different days.

(jk chuck, actually I pretty much agree w/you re: window-dressing "making the music better" ie, it doesn't really)

xp

i find 50's mythology draws me in; that is, into long-ass discussions about 50's mythology. which is pretty much exactly what 50 wants out of us, cuz the brain cells guard the wallet. he has yet to infect me enough to cause 'purchase', but i'll be damned if i ain't selling his story just by typing this po...

*ceases typing immediately*

I hate the 50s

Thnak you Chuck. You wordED my think gooder than me!

But did you hear the album tracks or just the singles?

also yeah a good story can make me like an artist more coz i listen to them and think about the story, which makes me feel happy. but this can be a story about the artist, or also a story about the when i bought the album, or when i listened to a song on it, or when a friend told me about a song on it, or because a particular person gave it to me, or because i got in an argument about a story that happened to the artist with a friend or etc.

also, "counterculture" maybe works as a term when it means "the culture of an, ahem, counterpower" to use the trendy bleh term. i mean there was a real moment when there were two cultures and they were two distinct social entities, and one was hegemonic and the other was thus, by defn, "counter." Presbyterianism was the counter-culture of the 17th cent., & the ranters were its Fugs!

the fugs are awesome.

"As far as 50 goes, his music leaves me cold. I'd rather listen to Nas or Freeway or Ludacris or the vintage pimposity of Big Daddy Kane or Biggie or just about anyone else. 50 has a nice voice, but he could do a lot more with it"

"if I'm gonna hear more of that POV, it's gotta be backed up by great beats, amazing lyrics, powerful delivery, some idiosyncratic character fluorishes maybe - 50s got none of that, from what I've heard."

"Can we talk about Piggy Bank now, and how inexplicable and lame it is? I don't understand this calling out all these good rappers with terrible disses on a really dull track!?"

now show me the posts where everybody's all 'yeah 50 Cent, he's so clever and witty'.

"What We Do" and "Hate it or Love It" are both great, "Disco Inferno" and "Candy Shop" both dud-ish, particularly since he's done better songs from a similar formula.

such a great track!

i mean, "go shawty, its yr birthday" was a throwaway intro that most people decided was a chorus because it stuck in their heads so completely.

Um, you know that that phrase was in pretty common use for at least a decade before "In Da Club" came out and that people would often chant it on the dance floor when someone was really dancing their ass off, don't you? Pretty much anybody could have said that on their track and it would have gotten the same reaction. (I am not discounting the fact that 50 actually did go ahead and do it or that it works the way you say it does.)

(this is kinda the mind-rut that punk got itself into after a while: invention as demonised mark of comfort, ease, prog etc)

50 Cent & The Game have decided to lay their beef to rest & will make a
formal announcement at a press conference today (March 9) at the Schomburg
Center For Research in Black Culture in NYC at 2:00 pm. "Game & I need to
set an example in the community," 50 said today. "50 and I are proving
that real situations and real problems can be solved with real talk," Game
added.

I reserve the right to be sarcastic about any stupid conflict! (Including ones I've been in involved in. ;-))

I think I agree with mark quite a lot: so in answer to the original title, no, the 50c sagas draw me away from him since they seem pretty lame / played out / obvious / dull now (yeah yeah from my ivory tower this is not real life) while in general I would say I never *buy into* an artist's mythology. Whether I like it or not I always treat it as mythology (not in that I demythologise it, although I do spend a lot of time trying to persuade people that everything on tv is fixed, but in not being particularly bothered to distinguish the true myths from the other ones (not that that questions irrelevant but just not one that comes to mind when I'm choosing what records to listen to)).

I'm pretty proud of the fact that neither of my blogs posted a single thing about all this stuff in the past week or two.

"50 Cent and the Game Call Truce in Rap War"
http://tinyurl.com/5xmjt

which lends more credence to my thought that this whole thing was made up and someone took a bullet for some dough, and 50 broke records. don't believe it people.

50 is one smart, smart dude and he has an army of marketing groups behind him...

2Pac, though, he was shot by the government.

Read this, its mel-man talking about what really went down.

that's it, I'm bustin a cap in yr ass.

They should make it so you die after the 10th shot.

Jadakiss & Fat Joe: 2
50 Cent: zeeeeeeeero

http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0511,tate1,62025,22.html

The 'Get Rich Or Die Tryin' rapper admits that even now, thinking about it makes him sad.

He told Britain's Smash Hits magazine: "I got my bike stolen as a kid. When you're that age, it's one of the worst things in the world to wake up in the morning and not see your bike where you left it.
However, the 30-year-old says he's learnt not to cry about it anymore.

He said: "I haven't done it in a long time because I've taught myself to deal with those feelings in another way."'

http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/celebrity/84422004.htm