EVERYBODY knows who wins a knife fight – the guy with a gun.
And the guy with a cocked Glock and a fully loaded clip of raging raps that brilliantly combine passion and storytelling is 50 Cent, whose CD “Curtis” (Interscope), stands as one of the best records – of any genre – this year.
After all the Kanye West vs. 50 Cent sniping over whose album will cut deeper and sell more today (the official release of both records), it really doesn’t matter: Cent’s “Curtis” is a timeless artistic achievement that transcends a petty mine-is-bigger-than-yours feud and elevates gangsta rap out of the ghetto of novelty music.
More so than on his previous “Get Rich or Die Tryin’ ” and “The Massacre,” Cent’s skill as an urban raconteur couldn’t be sharper. Haters will hear the stories revolving around threats and violence and say how terrible this 50 Cent man is.
Too bad for them.
Cent has done for rap what Clint Eastwood did for Westerns.
To think Cent’s lock-‘n’-load Fascination, which rifles through “Curtis,” is exclusive to black youth culture is racist. Cent subtly makes that point himself by introducing the record with a snippet of amusing yet hard-core dialogue between two white Brits during a gun buy from the motion picture “Shooters.”
While the best songs on “Curtis” – “My Gun Go Off,” “I’ll Still Kill” (featuring Akon), “Fully Loaded Clip” and “Curtis 187” – have an edge of violence and menace, Cent isn’t a one-trick act.
On “Ayo Technology” (featuring Justin Timberlake) and “Amusement Park,” Cent is a lover-man, and his entrepreneurial skills are extolled in “I Get Money” and “Straight to the Bank.”
Whether the tune is about guns, lovers or money, Cent spits words with flow and speed. The effect is an impressionistic collage of words almost too fast to understand individually, but that together give these raps setting, mood and power.
Think of the beat poets slamming in the ’50s.
The album isn’t perfect. The rap ballad “Follow My Lead” is a clunker, as Cent tries to show a softer side. But he does make sparks with a Mary J. Blige duet on “All of Me.” The credits on this track should read “Mary J. (featuring 50 Cent)” instead of the other way around. Blige is a powerhouse of hip-hop soul and dominates the piece.
“Curtis” is the kind of album that sets the bar high for every rapper – and artist, for that matter – including Kanye West.
“Curtis”
50 Cent