Get Rich Or Die Tryin'

(G-Unit/Interscope)

3/5 Stars



50 Cent has become a one-man No Limit crew. Every month or two, he has a new single to shove down the throats of listeners, a new formulaic 16 bars guaranteed to contain the words “gat,” “hollow tips,” “paper,” and some new combination of the same four or five expletives, a new catchy four-bar hook, a new Scott Storch beat.

And, apparently, we love it, because he is still selling better than any other rapper around. The soundtrack to 50’s new movie “Get Rich Or Die Tryin’” is the latest installment, no more and no less.

The album pretty much has the same feel all the way through: mildly threatening drums, mid-tempo minor-key keyboards and the occasional generic ’70s funk loop. The good part of this is that the album has a unified feel, and one can get lost in the drone, which is, at times, pretty easy on the ears.

The bad part is that if you step back and actively try to analyze the music, it falls apart, and this unified feel turns into a monotonous, depressing, barely tolerable drone. If Mr. Cent set out to create the aural equivalent of a Queens ghetto to accompany the movie’s actual hood, he has succeeded.

The tedium is broken up periodically by some standout tracks. In “What If,” 50 captures some of the same desperation that he pulled off in his outstanding verse on the Game’s “Hate It Or Love It.” And “Have A Party” is fire. A slamming beat, a gritty Havoc verse, and–wait for it–Nate Dogg on the hook.

Nate Dogg is the King Midas of commercial rap. “Chain 100K, but the flow is priceless,” Havoc spits in his trademark mumble. Grimy yet danceable, it is easily the best song on the album, as well as the best G-Unit song since “Hate It Or Love It.”

But the majority of the album never rises above mediocrity. The simply evil “I Don’t Know, Officer” is too selfish (and too long) to qualify as an anti-snitching anthem. 50 Cent, Prodigy (the third best rapper in New York in 1995, who’s fallen off harder than Humpty Dumpty), and a barely trying Mase sound less like they’re protecting their hood from cops and more like the sleazy, self-centered drug dealers they claim not to be in the song.

While “I Don’t Know, Officer” is the most menacing track on the album, it is also considerably hurt by the needless addition of G-Unit newcomer Spider Loc, who sounds too much like Lloyd Banks (who exhibits far more finesse on the track) without the flow. “Don’t know why they told you that we sell stones/We on the Internet, trying to get our e-mail on,” he growls half-drunkenly, in a typically inane lyric.

This ridiculous, barely-rhyming couplet is the only thing that sets him apart from the pack, causing Loc to look more and more like the Tampa Bay Devil Rays of the G-Unit behemoth. He also nearly spoils “Things Change,” an otherwise decent song that goes a little beyond your standard gangsta fare. But while he seems to have a hint of personality, Loc fails to diverge at all from the standard gangsta mold.

Here is where I am supposed to segue into a damning invective against 50 and his crew, about how they are ruining rap music and unfairly monopolizing the airwaves. While such a critique has its truth, much of the 50-hating is unjustified, or what Curtis would call “window shopping.”

50 may not be a good rapper, but he is a hell of a songwriter. Lloyd Banks is a talented lyricist with a lot of potential. Young Buck, well, um… he’s got some energy, and his descriptions of violence are still somewhat shocking. Tony Yayo and Olivia are pretty much worthless, as is Spider, Mase, M.O.P., and (sigh) Mobb Deep.

In the end, this is so-so music that to the discerning ear that will get old after a few spins. Considering 50’s limited lyrical and musical vocabulary and the fickleness of the pop audience, this will probably be one of the last decent G-Unit records.