Heading for self-destruction

Before a word was uttered about 50 Cent's talents on the mic to the general public, the essential facts of his life were proudly touted and marketed: the bullet wounds, the arrests, the all-encompassing gangster-ness. More so than most rappers, it seems as if he has put image before sound to make it big, marketing himself and his motto "get rich or die tryin'" with clothing lines, movies and now a perfume called Power by 50 Cent.

As a result, his music has become an afterthought, a hobby he engages in between sips of Vitaminwater. Faced with a tide of critical and even commercial indifference, Before I Self Destruct, out yesterday, attempts to smother the popular perception of 50 as a lonely multi-millionaire in a gargantuan Connecticut mansion and bring back the hungry kid in New York City who would do anything for a buck.

50 likely assumed his album art on Before I Self Destruct, which features his half-torn face specked with molten lava underneath, would provide a measure of grit. Instead, it merely reinforces his position as hip-hop's jester-in-chief.        

With Thisis50.com, trivial spats with Fat Joe and even his first underground single of notice "How to Rob," 50 has proven himself to be a gifted comedian and entertainer. Unfortunately, this far more appealing aspect of his persona remains buried in the tired self-seriousness of Before I Self Destruct, making it difficult to greet his lurid tales of sex and gunning with anything but indifference.

Speaking of artists on the wrong side of their peaks, Dr. Dre or whoever his current underling is (Mark Batson in this case), provides three listless beats for the album: "Death to My Enemies," "OK, You're Right" and "Psycho." The most heralded of these tracks is "Psycho" due to the appearance of the good doctor's other washed-up protégé, Eminem. Between them, Slim Shady and Fiddy have sold millions of albums and gradually worsened with every zero added to the end of their respective bank balances.

On "Psycho," Eminem describes how he "beat the Octomom to death with a Cabbage Patch Kid" while 50 instructs the listener to "look deep in my eyes see many, many men die," recalling a line from his 2003 debut Get Rich or Die Tryin'. The two emcees turn to horrorcore tabloid shout-outs and speed up their flows because they can't really offer the listener much else — their tanks are empty, and when they rap, it's more out of pure habit than inspiration.

Somewhere along the way 50 also lost one of his few distinguishing attributes: his pure, unadulterated ability to craft durable, infectious multi-verse hooks. Curtis' first single "I Get Money" had the lazy "I get money, money I got," and now Before I Self Destruct's "Baby By Me" leans on an empty "Have a baby by me, baby/ Be a millionaire." 50 can drop all the cash he wants, commissioning a beat from Polow Da Don and a chorus from Ne-Yo, but his lack of effort and skill manifest themselves many times over.

Unable to conjure up his own past, 50 reaches all the way back to the Sugarhill Gang with "Gangsta's Delight," produced by Mobb Deep's Havoc. The original "Rapper's Delight" was an innocent joyous little thing. 50 and Havoc layer the track with grime and vague menace, but the lyrics are more mockable than ever with "clip hop" replacing "hip hop," followed by the nonsensical "keep it hoodie when you f---ing with me."

Oddly enough, 50 addresses the ladies quite frequently. "Hold Me Down," "Do You Think About Me," "Could've Been You," and the aforementioned "Baby By Me" and "OK, You're Right" alternate between thug come-ons and vengeful admonishments. The original charming 50 with the superstar smile is gone, replaced by a spurned, child-support-paying father who can't even fake romance for the sake of his listeners. "Baltimore Love Thing," off  his 2005 sophomore LP The Massacre, is by itself greater than the sum of these songs.

Before I Self Destruct was initially set to drop before its predecessor Curtis and gathered dust until its release this year. 50 states it is his last album of original material. If this declaration is to be believed, then his career will have ended in a most peculiar way. 50 Cent rose from nothing to meteoric heights, conquered nearly every conceivable nook of pop culture while making albums that kept getting considerably worse and more calculated.

His story is vastly different from those of Jay-Z and Nas because 50 leaves his fans with an album too empty to satisfy the underground heads, pop idolizers, wannabe suburban kids, streets and everyone in between. But one can take comfort in the fact that if 50 Cent ever actually self-destructs,  it will be broadcast across the world and will be interesting enough to expunge every lingering memory of this very forgettable album.
 

vmain13@umdbk.com

RATING: 1.5 stars out of 5