stillmatic wrote:he's getting back to being pretty good again.
Btw. I meant 'Power of the Dollar' style Fifty, of course no where near it's quality yet. Actually, not nowhere near, because I think it's somewhat close to it.
Well he was only ever pretty good to begin with to me. In terms of, a rapper (lyrics and delivery). What took him above average on his best stuff was dark melodies, attitude and hooks. "Life's on the Line" is a perfect example of that. He was a DECENT rapper there actually but he was never amazing, or... you know, up there with the best of em in any sense. You get different things from different guys, Kanye for example makes up for not being the best MC with his vast musical palete and constant evolution...
Problem I have with 50 is, he's endlessly repetitive. Now, Em for example can be repetitive. I mean, not THAT much, he talks about quite a lot but in terms of the topics he dedicates albums to, he pretty much goes in circles. But he has so much skill and versatility that it doesn't really matter, as every new album is a new sound, style and exhibition...
But 50, doesn't have that. He shows flashes of potential now and then, for example "Stretch" is a great track, one of my favourite from 'BISD' and that idea as a hook is genuinely brilliant. But then he fills his verses with stuff he could of been saying in 2003, in the same way... he just never evolves stylistically, in subject-matter or anything else.
All he does is put new hooks to old verses. I think it's laziness too. In fact I don't know how much effort he puts into it but as a person he's clearly not a moron, so if he could just put the same intelligence and dedication into his music that he clearly has inside of him as a person, I think he might have something worth listening to again.
But do we really need another 15 tracks detailing how 'he's not playing' how he 'got shot 9 times', how rich he is, how many hoes he's got etc. ? I'm not trying to start a debate I'm just generally baffled by how (and you appear to be a knowledgeable fan of hip-hop) a genuine hip-hop enthusiast can get enjoyment out of such limited skill and constant repetition...
I don't hate 50 I just wish he would surprise me. There's nothing worse than predictability.