The only serious present-day heir to sainted founding fathers DMC and NWA, ex-crack dealer 50 Cent became an overnight hip-hop Godhead with his beyond-phenomenal debut Get Rich or Die Tryin’, an echoing, booming, bloodthirsty beast saturated with paranoia, claustrophobia and general violent vibes. It sold ten million-plus copies, and Eminem aside, the spliff-toting kids in my less-than-Bronxlike suburb scarcely listen to anybody else. Though his colourful biographical details (apparently the odd bullet has accidentally crossed his path) certainly haven’t done 50’s street-cred any harm, there’s far more to Mr. Cent than attitude, biceps and tattoos – there’s his welcome-to-Hell voice, for a start, a ferocious resounding instrument which makes Johnny Cash sound like Jimmy Somerville.
Lest anyone had feared ol’ 50 would succumb to the lure of commercial blandishments and be transformed through apathy into a latter-day Puff Daddy, The Massacre is every bit as monstrous and evil-spirited as its raging predecessor, opening in a deafening hail of gunfire, then setting off on an intoxicating, profanity-strewn scuzz-cruise, with 50 belligerently booming out defiant semi-veiled death threats against anyone remotely intent on treading his turf, while an army of backing vocalists grunt and growl vague declarations of hostility as they deem fit. It’s more of the same as on Die Tryin’, but even more cheerfully misanthropic: the production is fatter and bassier, and evidence of top-notch studio care is obvious, without any dilution of power.
Certainly, The Massacre has moments of relative light relief which, as with the 2003 smash ‘P.I.M.P.’, demonstrate that the Cent isn’t completely hostile to commercial potential. ‘I’m Supposed To Die Tonight’, menacing but majestic, grooves along supremely smoothly like one of Snoop’s slickest Sunday-drive creations before utterly caving into a magnificent inferno of screams and gunfire, while reggaefied stoner ballads like the ultra-laidback ‘Bitch Get In My Car’ are as close as 50 gets to daytime FM territory. Both are credible hits, PC linguistic sensitivities notwithstanding.
Otherwise, most of The Massacre is characteristically dense and claustrophobic, the aural equivalent of a side-alley mugging, brutish and unrelenting. Sure, there’s the occasional dispiriting capitulation to genre convention: 50 is no more reticent than the rest of his rap brethren about extolling the presumed aesthetic beauty of money, and seems ambiguous at best on the specific issue of rampant gang violence. To expect otherwise, though, would be ridiculous. With 22 magisterial tracks spread over 78 minutes, no-one could accuse him of short-changing the faithful, and whether you appreciate the attitude or not, 50 Cent has made a massive difference to rap’s latterday life-story, his two albums already forming arguably the most essential body of work in the genre’s history.
The Massacre is, needless to say, a near-death experience. Don’t fuck with this guy’s bitches.