50 Cent
The Massacre

Aftermath Records
For fans of: The Game, Lloyd Banks, Young Buck, G-Unit
Grade: D

Final word: Do you like lyrically challenged sell-out rap?
Download these tracks: “Baltimore Love Thing,” “Ski Mask Way,” “Build You Up”

50 Cent desperately wants you to believe he’s not a sell-out. The multi-platinum selling MC, best known for the rap-lite hit “In Da Club” and being shot nine times, is still gangsta, he swears. Just listen to the intro cut of his new album, “The Massacre”: a na‹ve little white girl reads a Valentine from Fiddy, pops in his new CD and is promptly blown away in a barrage of gunfire. Hard, right? Hardly. 50 talks the talk, but he’s fooling no one. He could redeem himself with smooth beats and lyrics, but that’s apparently not in the stars, either. “The Massacre” is just another throw-away Aftermath release, full of empty threats, weak rhymes and too much filler.

50 Cent’s biggest problem is certainly his flow. A combination of massive hype, overflowing charisma and dancefloor-tailored beats helped him on his first release, but the ruse is wearing thin. He utilizes an annoying sing-speak style through most of his verses, most gratingly on the out-of-key hook of “Outta Control,” when he barely gets out, “Set it off on yo left, dawg, set it off on yo right, dawg.” He rarely ventures outside of the tired guns/bitches/braggadocio formula, and he struggles to make it interesting. “I got no pickup lines / I stay on the grind / I tell them hos all the time / bitch, get in my car,” he sneers on “Get in my Car” to a bored audience. His few lyrical departures are hit or miss: “Gatman and Robbin,” featuring Eminem, is just too goofy, and the diss track “Piggy Bank” falls flat, but “Baltimore Love Thing” is a harrowing drug tale told from the perspective of heroin itself: “I don’t give a damn if yo ass start smokin’ / but we have a bond that is not to be broken!”

50’s not even too serviceable for the radio this time around, although his singles are sitting comfortably at spots 1 and 3 on the charts. Apparently the public only wants more of the same, because “Candy Shop” is an obvious retooling of his hit “Magic Stick,” and the flaccid “Disco Inferno” is an “In Da Club” clone. He’d have better luck with “Build You Up,” a sleek bedroom anthem featuring Jamie Foxx, or perhaps “Ski Mask Way,” which bubbles over with ’70s soul samples. A few better-than-average cuts can’t save this mess of a massacre, however. Hardly a bloodbath, it’s more like an abortion.

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