After the meaningless, obligatory "Intro which", as you may have guessed, holds no purpose but as space filler to the album, we kick off proceedings with the awful titled "What Up Gangsta."
Before we begin, I have one thing to say about this track; 50 Cent has supposedly been living in Brooklyn most of his life, with that said, why on God's green Earth does he repeat the phrase "cuh" over and over again. It's a known fact that this word originated in the South, so 50, also known as Curtis Jackson, is contradicting himself.
"What Up Gangsta" is absolutely horrible. The production, which consists of an annoying bass line, attempts at loud, hard-hitting drum loops, and a mainstream clap create what has to be one of the most annoying beats I've heard in quite a while. I've never liked Dr. Dre, so this gives me more initiative not to.
50 Cent has never been known for his lyrical prowess, so it should be said this won't prove he's the next Canibus or Ras Kass. His simplistic, utterly mystifyingly stupid lyricism is peppered with phrases he considers clever, but are plainly stupid. I immediately picture that kid High School who thought he was hilarious and was as close to being humanly retarded as it comes. 50's attempts at humor (which are un-listenable, to say the least) intermingle with his elementary rhymes, commercialized subject matter, and apparent lack of vocabulary. His absolute ignorance is astounding as he spits tired clich茅 after another with absolutely abysmal, unimaginative lyricism and subject matter.
He takes a more topical stance with the slight improvement "Many Men (Wish Death)."
The piano-influenced Eminem production fits well with 50's more subject matter-oriented lyricism. Although the drum loop is more than annoying, the piano sample is decent enough. 50's rhymes are still elementary and in need of quite a bit of fine-tuning, but with a comparison of his past work and even the aforementioned track, it's a bit of an improvement. His simplistic rhymes grate quite a bit as his lack of vocabulary and an even more apparent lack of a solid flow mars more poetic subject matter. His reflective, deeper, yet still simple topic matter is a vast improvement over his non-stop thug rants and cartoon-ish violence, which brings a bit of variety to an unoriginal, tired album.
While his subject matter may feature an assortment of street poetics and his ignorant views (which are kept to a minimum), his lyricism is just too simple and elementary to be labeled anything average or above. Even with that said, his abysmal rhyme scheme is dull and repetitive, marring a more listenable track with a lack of actual rhyming ability.
50 Cent also feels it's necessary to waste time describing his love of weed with "High All The Time."
It seems as though the plant may have damaged his brain due to the fact that he decides to sing the hook. His off-key, unbearable tone-deafness only adds to the fact that his feeble attempts at rhyming are awful at best.
50 Cent once again displays his unbelievable ignorance. Any lyrical ability that may be known to man, he doesn't possess. His astoundingly bad, dull, repetitive, unoriginal rhymes are mind-bogglingly simple. His repeating of the same word as an ending rhyme and the absence of anything remotely clever makes this an absolutely awful track. To make matters worse, his subject matter is typical commercial Hip-Hop, describing his love of weed and what in particular he smokes. 50 has absolutely no lyrical skills and this becomes more apparent with each commercialized, simplistic, gratingly elementary rhyme he spits.
50 Cent was always known for "How To Rob An Industry *****" which featured punch line after punch line coupled with wit and charisma. He attempts to recapture those days with "Back Dow"n, one of many of his disses to Ja Rule.
The dark, atmospheric production fits well with the sparse drum loop and sound effects which sound like they were from a Horror movie. This works well as 50 digs deep into Ja Rule, actually letting us hear some decent lyricism. His punch lines are humorous, as he actually displays some comedy and also more focused rhymes. Even though that's not saying much considering the fact that 50 Cent is unbelievably weak rhyme-wise; his similes and punch lines shift the focus, however. His mixture of truths and humor combine well, as if gives him a chance to have his extremely below average less focused on as he creates chuckles. While the combination of the cutting lyricism and improved production is definitely a step in the right direction, his weak, simple, anemic rhymes can no longer be overlooked. ("This Rap **** is all ****** up now//What are we gonna do now?// How we gonna eat man? 50 back around//That's Ja's little punk *** thinkin' out loud//Southside, Tah died, that's just how I get down//I'm back in the game shorty, to "Rule" and conquer //You sing for hoes and sound like the Cookie Monster")
Misogynistic territory is stepped into with "P.I.M.P." as I'm guessing he's trying to be funny, but only ends up digging himself an even bigger hole with the commercialized production, appallingly bad lyrics, thoughtless rhymes, and subject matter that anybody with a sex life could come up with.
"Poor Lil' Rich" is absolute trash. A club-influenced, almost Cash Money-sounding piece of production is put behind his commercialized, mainstream, materialistic lyrics. It goes without saying that his rhymes are awful, but for 50 to do something this awful completely blows me away.
"21 Questions" has him asking if women would still love him if he had nothing at all. His subject matter is laughable, as is the production. The guitar-influenced track was made for radio play, as if that wasn't apparent by the nauseating subject matter.
Even with Eminem's appearance on "Don't Push Me", it's still everything we've heard thus far put into another commercialized instrumental. Lloyd Banks, who is also a member of 50 Cent's G-Unit crew, possesses the same amount of skill as the proverbial leader of this whack crew. This is getting ridiculous; it was almost as if this album was designed to test the listener鈥檚 patience due to the fact that lyrics always remain abysmal and never got close to the mediocre line. Never does 50 say anything interesting or complex, never does he spit anything intricate, and never does the production become listenable. This also holds true for this particular track which only features one decent verse which is Eminem's.
50 also feels as if it's necessary to include three bonus tracks. "Wanksta" is the one I'm sure you're familiar with. The other two, "U Not Like Me" and "Life's On The Line", which are exactly like the rest of the album, minus the commercial aspects, isn't saying much as he's as lyrical as he has been throughout the duration of the album. For the latter track he brings on-board his G-Unit crew, consisting of Lloyd Banks, Tony Yayo, and himself. None of them are any good as they possess the same amount of skill as 50, which should be enough explanation to truly understand how terrible they are.
This is an awful, awful album. 50 possesses no lyrical talent, and the production is of the same caliber. Some may wonder how I gave this album just one star and a majority of the tracks the same rating, but 50 is so bad that I couldn鈥檛 give nearly any of the tracks or the album itself any higher of a rating. The filler tracks coupled with the commercialism and the fact that 50 Cent has no talent were big factors as to why this album didn鈥檛 even get two stars. This LP isn鈥檛 a disappointment to me as I鈥檝e always thought this of 50, and if he should ever start doing commercial Hip-Hop, it would only make me dislike him more. This all leads up to the reason I consider this an absolutely terrible album. I know its old but i don't see how ppl actully call this album a classic
come to think its not even old it only came out 5 yrs ago & it has NOT aged well at all ppl already call it old this is a noter reason why its not a classic I totally agree with you on this one Escobar. In Da Club was a decent enough party track and Many Men was passable, but apart from that, there was nothing on that album (imo, anyway), to herald the coming of a new King of Hip Hop the way some people made it sound. I bought that album and wanted my damned money back!
Production wise, I don't think Dre was too sure about this guy and it sounds like he's given him his second best beats because he didn't think he was worthy of his top notch stuff. And Em is an incredibly talented emcee, but he's no producer.
P.I.M.P was one of those tracks that just had me shaking my head in disgust. Not because it personally offended me (it's not like I even know the guy), but because I spend so much time defending hip hop when people call it misogynistic, and then the biggest album of the year has that f*****g track on it! And for a guy who claims to be such a pimp, it's weird to me that his album seemed to be pretty much a love letter to Ja Rule. Talk about obsessed - I swear, if Ja had pigtails, 50 would pull them.
50's songs all fall into
1) I hate (insert rapper name)
2) I got shot you know, I'm so hard.
3) Have sex with me right now and then I'll call you a hoe in the morning.
I know people think he fell off after GRODT, but after hearing it, I didn't have any hopes for him anyway. too long to read, sorry!! excuse me i don't speak english very well because i'm italian...and the passage is too long to read, sorry!! .....i also very like 50 cent and all rap...american I see you put a lot of thought into this, but I gotta disagree with you.
Get Rich or Die Trying had mean production on it, and was a crazy debut album. It definetly hits hard. Had you said the same for any of his following albums, I might've had to agree with you, because AFTER GRODT, his quality decreased more with every album. The album is old now so whats the problem? In your opinion it was overrated but you clearly bought it and now want to rip it to shreds 5 years later. 50 did his thing on his album and it let people know who he was so it served a purpose for him. the album was a classic even Nas said it was one of the best hip hop albums Esco when are you gonna write a book?
In any case, I agree with most of what you say. 50's lyrics rival those of Dr. Seuss. He voice is as monotonous as Timbaland's when he tried to rap back in '97. P.I.M.P. is one of the worst songs I have EVER heard...period. He accused Ja Rule of being to "love song, R&B" but then he comes out with 21 questions?? To make matters worse, "Magic Stick." Nuff Said there. He proceeded to make the exact same song in his next album with "candy shop," an equally terrible song.
On the other hand, I am a moderate fan of dre's production from da chronic days leading into snoop and em and some of the stuff he did with NaS. But leave it to 50 to absolutely destroy some decent production 50's best stuff was Guess who's back album.
What happen was hip-hop/ rap game became pop on gangsta raps shoulders and MC's got phased out by the next new gangsta. Instead of the next nice MC like it used to be.
I respect 50's hustle, but if he does make anymore songs I'm good.
Dr. Dre is a legend, but he is overhyped Primo fades him easy.
crack money booty shaking wheres the poems, stories
Punch line after punch line Nowadays well 50 does get type boring after a minute bu u cant deny him of his skill he killed the career of 2 rap artist ja rule and jada they been tryiin to come out for the longest but that aiint gonna happen and he ran fat joe outta of ny. what was fat joe reppin like 4 years ago. 50 dropped dat dis record and what his he reppin now miami i have to disagree with u dude i think grodt was a greeat album one of the best debuts from hip hop that year the production was crazy his lyrics though not filled with metaphors had some nice punchlines and i think the production boosted his lyrics that much more sorry i jst cant agree with u on that yeah i never thought of it as a classic. it was good but not great. i never got that whole it's a classic thing. A classic to me would be a album that has every song on there that you can listen to without skipping. I guess 1 song to skip would still be good. However this is just my opinion.
I couldn't agree with you more that is surely is a very over rated album. don't hate..I love that cd..It's my favorite drink coaster... esco you crazy if you think somebody gon read all them shits... and i hope that was copy and paste, cuz if not, you care way too damn much. its just one album lol im noy gonna lie...that was my ish back in the day. but then again, i was listening to 50, ja rule, and all those other wack mcs. as of now though, the only track from that album (pretty much his whole career) i was SLIGHTLY feeling was many men, just because i liked how it sounded, not really because of his "lyrical genius." but hey, thats just me. man your opinions are very subjective
this is just hating IMHO
i liked GRODT, no bias
i just liked the way he flowed on each song and i respected his style even though it was kind of slow and basic, he pulled it offf well
this is the reason why all the albums after are sooo wack
GRODT was like the standard that he wont be able to reach anymore
your opinions are in hindsight, which is unfair
when GRODT came out it was hot and it sounded raw
of course now its gonna sound lame, especially after 50 released all that trash after
now you can say, he talks about the same ish over and over
but when GRODT came out it was the first time most people ever heard of him, and it came raw and hard |
