Thirty Three Jones | Desktop Site
As I've said before, I'm not a big fan of 50 Cent and his whole studio gangster persona. Back when he was with Nas, before he went platinum and moved into Tyson's house, he could actually rap consistently. Now it seems he is doing his best Ja Rule impersonation, and feels the need to have an R&B singer on his records to distract from his subpar lyrics.
The thing about being at the top of the game (at least as far as record sales) though, is that you can always convince the best producers to work with you no matter how weak you are lyrically (see: MC Puff Daddy and the Hitmen). Although 50 seems to think otherwise, I can't imagine he'd be putting up the sales figures that he does without Dre doing at least some of the production on his albums.
However, it seems that Fifty has managed to find a backup plan should Dre ever decide to stop working with him: the legendary Pete Rock. I know this is a couple of months old, but I just got around to listening to Emotional, 50's collabo with the Soul Survivor. Admittedly, Pete Rock hasn't been doing a lot of mainstream production recently, but his beats are classic. About the only other person you could ever replace Dre with would be Premier, and unless your name is Guru or Group Home, Primo's probably not going to produce an entire album for you.
Anyway, the beat on Emotional is pretty solid work. Backing up my claim that 50 isn't much of a lyricist any more, the best part of the song is the second half when he stops rapping and just starts talking. Some interesting topics are brought up here. Looks like 50 Cent is continuing to go at The Game, claiming Jimmy Henchman told The Game to start that whole G UNot campaign. Is that even something you would want to take credit for? Switching up the letters in someone's name is the kind of dis that won't even make the cut on Wild N Out.
You'd think either The Game or 50 must have a new album coming out if they're trying to cook up this fake beef again. Or maybe one of them has a movie coming out...Fifty also implies that the he is getting a cut from the next four albums that The Game puts out. By the time that the fourth album comes out I'm sure they'll be on some Biggie/Tupac type drama just to boost sales, because there's no way four more records featuring The Game's tired lyrics are going to go platinum without some sort of drama in the background.
The best part, though, is Fifty giving a shout out to Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi for paying him $500,000 to appear at a party in Venice, back in January. I can't hate on that -- getting paid to party with third world dictators is some next level ish.
Here is the song from G-Unit Radio: 50 Cent -- Emotional
While we're on the subject of Pete Rock, check out this story from byroncrawford.com. Pete Rock ain't snitching.
11/22/2005 8:14:23 AM posted by Fresh