50 Cent - The New Breed (Bonus CD) (April 15, 2003)

It’s me, your friendly neighborhood Max, dipping my toes into the water to test both an end to the hiatus and the reaction to an artist that I’m still on the fence about with regard to my ongoing blog project. Should Curtis “50 Cent” make the “finish what I started” cut or not? Vote now and vote often!

(“Votes” are seen as “comments”, “shared links”, and “page clicks” in this context.)

2003 was a banner year for 50 Cent, who saw his debut album, Get Rich or Die Tryin’, see release after his previous attempt at a first album, Power of the Dollar, was cancelled by a terrified Columbia Records after their artist was shot nine times in 2000, not because he was shot so many times at close range and still survived, but because of a track included on the project, “Ghetto Qu’ran”, which triggered his being blacklisted in the music industry due to his snitching on actual legit drug dealers from Queens. Unlike the Trackmasters-produced Power of the Dollar, Get Rich or Die Tryin’ was recorded under the guidance of 50’s new corporate overlords, Andre “Dr. Dre” Young (late of N.W.A. and gangsta rap powerhouse Death Row Records) and Marshall “Eminem” Mathers (hip hop’s golden boy at the time), for Em’s then-new Shady Records imprint, and given the shift from Poke and Tone’s sample-heavy beats to Dre’s prescriptions, it was a foregone conclusion that he’d be allowed to let his gangsta freak flag fly, blacklisting be damned.

It was a solid gamble on the part of Em and Dre, as Get Rich or Die Tryin’ went on to become the best-selling album of all of 2003, and was awarded a certification for moving over nine million units Stateside just last week, no lie. But it wasn’t just his music that sold the general public on 50 Cent, even though Get Rich or Die Tryin’ featured some massive goddamn hit songs (indeed, one could throw on “In Da Club” today and everyone at the party or in your office will start rapping along to the “we don’t give a fuck it’s not your birthday” part during the intro): it was a planned attack by Interscope Records to bombard the medium with Curtis Jackson’s presence, pushing both him and his cronies in the G-Unit (which, at the time, included Tony Yayo and Lloyd Banks in its ranks, both of whom also appeared on 50’s debut) to the forefront, capitalizing on their successful mixtapes and their gangsta personas to scare the listener into buying more shit.

Part of this attack was a DVD titled The New Breed, released a mere two months after Get Rich or Die Tryin’. Its primary selling point was a documentary about, shockingly, 50 Cent, chronicling the creation of his Shady/Aftermath/Interscope debut, focusing on an artist given a rare second chance not just in the music industry, but at life itself. (That sounds cheesy and overdramatic, but for all the shit I’ve talked about 50 Cent in the past, and for all of the shit I’ll likely continue to say moving forward, one cannot discount the fact that he was shot nine times and lived to tell the tale, even with his flow permanently altered.) The DVD also included some behind-the-scenes footage, live performances, and three music videos for “Wanksta” (a bonus track on the proper album), “In Da Club” (the first single), and “Heat” (a violent album cut). Interscope may have jumped the gun here, as Get Rich or Die Tryin’ spawned multiple hit singles and, relatedly, even more videos, but that’s neither here nor there.

The subject of today’s post, however, is the bonus CD that came bundled with copies of The New Breed, featuring three non-album tracks that play into the mythology the G-Unit had worked so hard to maintain up to that point. These songs aren’t necessarily hard to come by (which is why I absolutely did not purchase The New Breed just to write about them – I mean, come the fuck on), but each plays into a different facet of what Curtis Jackson believed he was bringing to the table in the early part of the millennium. Not that he likely had any say in what was actually included here: the selections feel random as shit. But in that randomness comes a pattern, a pattern that could help solve the conundrum that is 50 Cent, is what I would write if I were high as shit right now.

The New Breed:

1. TRUE LOYALTY (FEAT. LLOYD BANKS & TONY YAYO)

Producer Red Spyda’s instrumental for “True Loyalty” is exactly the type of half-assed effort typically reserved for many of the original tracks found on the popular G-Unit mixtapes, so me telling you that’s the reason you may be even remotely familiar with this song shouldn’t surprise you too much. “True Loyalty” is corny as fuck, but at least Curtis tries for something different here: he uses this track to show his platonic love for his co-thug, in this case Lloyd Banks, as they both share mic duties for the length of two verses and a shitty chorus. None of his comments sound genuine in the least bit, because 50 Cent’s rhymes all come out of the mouth frozen into a perpetual smirk, but it’s weird how earnest he tried to sound with lines such as, “For you, there ain’t a damn thing that I won’t do / I’m a thug, that’s the way I show my love for you,” bars which were almost certainly left on the table from an early version of “21 Questions” and repurposed here. Banks is utterly wasted on “True Loyalty”, first as the foil for Curtis and then during the second verse, where he takes center stage and promptly fills it with asinine comparisons in lieu of actual rhymes (the one that stood out the most for me was, of course, the most ridiculous one: “I’m the knife, you the stab”) in an attempt to prove to Curtis just how loyal he apparently is. Or was at one point, anyway.

Bizarrely, all of this pomp and circumstance serves as the lead-up to an actual verse from the true star of the show, Tony Yayo, who, freed from the constraints of having to write around his G-Unit brethren, chooses to… eschew the theme of “True Loyalty” completely, instead spitting generic street shit as a way to exert dominance in an overcrowded sub-genre of hip hop. I mean, Yayo’s first line is, “You can catch me in public housing” – how is that not pandering? While it is kind of funny how neither Curtis nor Banks bothers name-dropping their colleague and fellow group member, it’s usually not a great sign of success for your song when Tony fucking Yayo has the longest and most coherent verse. Well, aside from his closer, where he threatens to bring “sixteen cars [to] your mom’s doormat”, which, even for this song, is a bit of a stretch.

2. 8 MILE ROAD (G-UNIT REMIX) (FEAT. LLOYD BANKS & TONY YAYO)

I haven’t yet reviewed the soundtrack for Eminem’s 8 Mile, so it is admittedly a little weird to be writing about what is essentially a mixtape freestyle over the beat used for its quasi-title track, but I will say this: although “Lose Yourself” is a legitimately great song, one wholly deserving of its Academy Award (if not Marshall’s recent puzzling performance at the actual Oscar ceremony) and possibly one of the top three songs the man will ever write, I’ve always found “8 Mile Road” to be more inspirational for me. Instead of commanding the listener to acquiesce to the creative medium of their own choosing, frightening them into believing that they “only have one shot” even though the track is obviously just the man describing his character Rabbit’s experiences, “8 Mile Road” finds Em going all-in on Rabbit’s mental state, his anxiety, his fears, and his triggers, his first-person recounting ultimately reaching an understanding that, in order to even begin to think about what he needs to do to achieve his dreams of rap stardom, he needs to muster up the “courage” to take that first step, which is far more relatable than “Lose Yourself”, which, again, is a great fucking song, don’t get me wrong.

“8 Mile Road (G-Unit Remix)” takes Marshall’s foundation (he had also produced its instrumental, and it’s a rare good one) and basically shits all over that, curtailing all of the aspirational content in favor of braggadocio. That’s not to say there isn’t any entertainment value to be found on this repurposed mixtape freestyle, though: Banks’s opening verse is actually very good, his boasts effortless and confident (“I’m comfy as hell skatin’ with another n---a’s money”). There’s a weird misogynistic tone that invades the performance mid-verse, but the rest of his stanza is pretty fucking good. Yayo, interestingly enough, raps from the point of view of, er, yayo, playing the role of literal cocaine as he describes his popularity and how one could theoretically stretch out your brick if you “cook me in baking soda”, and it’s one of the more imaginative performances from a guy who isn’t really known for these flights of fancy, even if the metaphor is a bit labored. Curtis rounds things out by talking mad shit all over his then-label boss’s instrumental, even finding time to throw in some subliminal shots at Ja Rule just because. Eminem’s “8 Mile Road” is obviously the superior song, as it features the man actually talking about something, but the G-Unit manages an enjoyable-enough diversionary tactic here. Who knew?

3. IN DA HOOD (FEAT. BROOKLYN)

The final song of the evening is the not-as-rare-as-you-may-think Dr. Dre-produced “In Da Hood”, which consists of a simple-enough loop (some Scott Storch piano keys over light drum work and some Mike Elizondo bass) that sounds like it’s literally creeping through your hood, even though guest Brooklyn’s hook informs the listener that she and Curtis are, in fact, “ridin’” through it. 50 turns in two verses that weren’t necessarily written for this beat exclusively, but he sounds fine, his gangsta growl a welcome contrast to the relatively calm musical backing. Brooklyn is a rapper-slash-producer once signed to Aftermath that never really saw her career go anywhere (see: everyone else ever signed directly to Aftermath whose first names aren’t Marshall, Kendrick, or Andre), and her rap-sung bridge floats by without impact toward the end, but she also sounded decent otherwise. The real draw of “In Da Hood” is going to be Dre’s prescription, which wouldn’t have fit onto Get Rich or Die Tryin’ but is still worthy of a wider audience. Go ahead and track it down.

FINAL THOUGHTS: I haven’t screened the DVD itself (again, I didn’t buy this thing in order to write about it, YouTube is a friend to both you and I), so I have nothing to say about its contents, although, again, I do believe it would have worked a bit better for the consumer had Interscope held back until the promotional cycle for Get Rich or Die Tryin’ was completed before releasing it, so that all of its accompanying video clips could be represented. But I can say that the bonus CD is absolutely not a valid reason to pick up the DVD. Three songs that one could find almost anywhere on the Interweb aren’t exactly an enticing proposal, unless you absolutely need to hear them fully mastered, I guess. There’s nothing deep about any of these tracks, nor will you discover anything new about Curtis Jackson or what makes him tick: you already know exactly what to expect from him even if you’ve never heard these songs before. The true gem of the piece is “In Da Hood”, as Dr. Dre’s instrumental, while a simple loop, provides a depth to Curtis’s sound that provides a stark contrast to his gangsta shit, while “8 Mile Road (G-Unit Remix)” is a solid example of the chemistry our host shared with the rest of his G-Unit at one point, back when they were all starving artists (relatively speaking) eager to impress and engage their audience. The only weak point here is “True Loyalty”, which is motherfucking wack, not because of 50’s pledging of love and loyalty to his friends, but because it’s fucking terrible as a piece of music. It’s unfortunate that there aren’t more than just the two other tracks featured to help wash away the memory of this garbage, but I suppose that’s what Get Rich or Die Tryin’ is for.

BUY OR BURN? In the year of our Lord 2020, there is no need to purchase a 50 Cent DVD unless you really cherish the idea of owning a handful of the man’s music videos from 2003. Especially in a world where YouTube exists. But it’s your money, and if you feel like spending your money, at least click on one of my Amazon links first, as I’d like to keep this site going a bit longer, yeah?

BEST TRACKS: “True Loyalty”…ha ha, just kidding, that shit sucks. The other two songs, however, are enjoyable

-Max

RELATED POSTS:

Sure, they’re kind of old and could stand some revisions, but if you want to take that stroll down memory lane, you can click here to read the other Curtis Jackson write-ups I’ve published.