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.

"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