Curtis

50 Cent has an awful lot of street cred, but he’s never had much reputation as a musical innovator. So unsurprisingly his third record kind of sounds like his first one. Almost every track has a slick musical hook but essentially it’s the lyrics that are meant to be doing the work. But 50 is a lazy monosyllabic rapper, and on some tracks he actually sounds like he’s just come out of the operating theatre (particularly on ‘Man Down’).
“I’ve got a hell of a flow as you already know,” he asthmatically wheezes to auto-tuned Pussy Cat Doll Nicole Scherzinger on ‘Fire’, but it’s the most unconvincing thing I’ve heard since Colin Powell outlined the rationale for invading Iraq. Better wordsmiths could find new and interesting ways of saying “I might shoot you”, “I come from the streets, but I’m very, very rich now”, and “I like ladies very much.” Not 50.  
So the high points are all from his celebrity collaborators. Akon gives ‘I’ll Still Kill you’ a welcome boost. Timbaland’s production and Justin Timberlake’s crooning on the pervy ‘Ayo Technology’ are occasionally synthtastic. Mary J. Blige gives some grit and soul to ‘All of Me’ in which she melodiously croons that Fifty’s gonna make her fall in love.
Unfortunately the object of her affections is boasting like a 10-year-old on valium in the background.
In the run-up to this album-release 50 decided to make much of a fabricated rivalry with Kanye West. But West kicks his arse. 50 has created an energy-less, Nichean vacuum of an album. Shooting people, no-strings-attached sex and being a millionaire has never sounded so boring.