Fighter: 50 Cent
Trainer (Gym): 50 Cent (Caroline/Capitol)
Cut Men: Dr. Dre, Jake One, Frank Dukes, Dawaun Parker, Mark Baston, Charli Brown Beatz, Swiff D, Shamtrax, Steve Ailen, G Rocka, Medi, JustHustle, Kyle Justice, Ky Miller, Ty Fyffe, Soul Professa, Nascent, QB
Weight Class: Rap Superstar/Hood Star
Notable Fire: Hustler, Pilot, Winners Circle (Feat. Guordan Banks)
Notable Trash: Animal Ambition, Everytime I Come Around (Feat. Kidd Kidd), Irregular Heartbeat (Feat. Jadakiss & Kidd Kidd), Hold On
Tale of the Tape: It’s actual name is Animal Ambition: An Untamed Desire To Win.
Sort of an odd name for an album, especially considering its creator is one of the biggest stars and brightest businessmen the industry has ever seen. Sure, hip-hop is largely built around braggadocio, but this seems highly unnecessary, right?
Remember Vitamin Water? 50 already won a long time ago. Then again, Fif was never one to know when to leave well enough alone. Nearly five years and one record label change after his last release, 50 Cent released his fifth solo album, Animal Ambition.
Curtis Jackson is an extremely competitive and prideful guy. Even after the Vitamin Water deal, it would have been naive to expect 50 to fade to black (sitting atop his gargantuan pile of money somewhere in Connecticut must’ve gotten boring? I guess?). In an attempt to relaunch his floundering career, 50 (and his G-Unit imprint) made his highly publicized departure from Shady/Aftermath/Interscope, where he’s had all of his success as a musician to this point, and joined up with Caroline/Capitol Records.
The change of scenery was worth a shot, as Fif has been on an extended losing streak on the music tip for quite some time. He hasn’t had a relevant song since 2007’s “I Get Money”.
2007? That was seven years ago!
Undeterred, 50 has kept pushing, and even reached out to the likes of the hottest rappers in the game to bring his career out of its slumber, however it didn’t really move the needle within hip-hop (despite the YouTube numbers). Needless to say, the pressure was on 50 to knock this album out of the park in order to justify his move form Interscope and to reestablish his place in the game.
The album beings with the uneventful and inauspicious “Hold On”, which rather than reintroducing fans to the coming-at-your-neck 50 of old, is the same ole Curtis we’ve been hearing since Curtis. Simply put, it was madd boring, which is a real shame considering the responsibility this track carried.
Sidebar: I’m also not convinced Joell Ortiz co-wrote this song.
Things didn’t get much better, as after the average (at best) “Don’t Worry ‘Bout It” led into the disaster that was the album’s title track. “Animal Ambition”, another song carrying added responsibility, was a complete train wreck. In the first verse, Fif actually rhymes “bitch”, “shit”, “rich”, “dick”…and then “bitch” again in succession. Now, 50 Cent was never known for his lyrical prowess, but this is just offensive, especially given the reprehensible beat he was rhyming over. And the wild animal noises at the end of the song? That was just magnificent.
Sidebar: Just imagine Fif in the studio with his producers… “And then in the background at the end, we should add in a bunch of lion and orangutan noises and shit. It’ll be fire!” Literally shaking my head as I type this.
Lucky, Animal Ambition finally took a turn for the better with the uptempo and extremely catchy “Pilot”, where 50 not-so-coincidentally speaks on being flyer than the completion. “Hustler” is about as close to classic 50 as you’ll find here, and gives fans the old vicious 50 feel, even if he is rhyming about stuntin, rather than gunplay. Unfortunately, the LP was riddled with far too much inconsistency for the listener to play the album without keeping their finger near the skip button.
Any potential momentum built by “Pilot” and the radio-friendly “Smoke” (Dre beat plus Trey Songz hook), was eradicated swiftly by “Everytime I Come Around” and “Irregularly Heartbeat”, the latter of which couldn’t even be salvaged by a Jadakiss 16 (50 has tried mightily to squash old beefs of late). These two songs both feature garbage verses from Kidd Kidd. In fact, the former Sqad Up member inexplicably has three verses in all on the album, and not an ounce of fire was spoken.
Sidebar: I kinda miss Sqad Up Wayne.
Animal Ambition ends with a couple halfway decent tracks, and ultimately leaves fans wanting more…but not in the good way. If you ignore the bonus tracks, the album doesn’t even crack the 40 minute mark. While Fif is notorious for cranking out 3:30 numbers, he normally manages to throw at least 20 of them on a record. Was this all he could really muster up? Again, considering the move to a new label, and the pressure to reestablish himself as a heavyweight in the game, 50 failed to put forth a project consistent with his prior Interscope works.
Fight Night: Ninth Round TKO Loss
Perhaps a baseball analogy would be better served this time: it feels like 50 Cent, rather than stepping into the batter’s box and taking his cuts, struck out looking with Animal Ambition. The production was underwhelming throughout (why was “Flip On You” only a bonus track?) and nothing memorable was said on the entire album. The album wasn’t as much bad as it was forgettable.
Interestingly, one of 50’s trademarks as an artist has always been making unforgettable music— even if you didn’t like it, he’d always give you something to cling onto. For many of his hits, particularly in the Get Rich Or Die Tryin’ years, FIf has followed a similar blueprint. Here’s a quick look at “Formula 50” (now I KNOW you see what I did there):
Step 1) Dope beat (not necessarily by Dr. Dre— he only did four on GRODT)
Step 2) Catchy hook
Step 3) One (maybe two) slick lines over a track no longer than 4:20, including post-verse skits and general shit talking…
And that’s it!
50 has always had a good ear for music, and while he may not necessarily have the financial backing from his new label that he once had from Interscope 10 years ago, he’s wealthy enough to invest in whichever top-notch produces he wishes in order to lace his record with the backdrop needed for another hit. Sadly, fans were basically left with the production equivalent of the $5 DVD bin at Wal-Mart.
And say what you will about him as a lyricist, Curtis has always had an innate ability to pull a few memorable lines out of nowhere. Remember these gems?
“I’ma tell you what Banks told me, ‘cuz go head & switch the style up/And if they hate, then let em hate and watch the money pile up'”
“I love you like a fat kid loves cake/You know my style, I’ll say anything to make you smile”
“Daaaamn homie/In high school you was the maaaan homie, what the fuck happened to you?”
“Have a baby by me baby, be a millionaire/I write the check before the baby comes, who the fuck cares?/I’m stanky rich, I’ma die trying to spend this shit”
Of course you do! Each one of these lines are pure gold! Not super lyrical, but super memorable— that was 50s M.O. Well that, and he packs more hooks than Joe Frazier. Add it all up and you have a winning formula for a guy who managed to sell tens of millions of records with so-so rhymes.
Animal Ambition appears noticeably deficient in “Formula 50”. No slick talk and few satisfactory beats; the hooks on the whole were actually pretty decent and the lyrics were on par with what we’ve come to expect from him. But the album was also void of some of his other details, such as 50 switching his flow and hitting listeners with a mini-bridge of sorts at the top of the second verse.
Maybe this album was comprised mostly of run-out-the-clock material he had in the can when he thought he needed to crank out one more record on his Intersocpe deal (before Dre & Em magnanimously let him out of it early). Or maybe he was too focused on his other amazing talent: drumming up attention in the media for any conceivable reason besides music.
You may have heard 50 reunited with G-Unit at Summer Jam, or that he said Jay Z was overrated, or that he claimed Game was almsot bipolar. Also, his pugilist protégé Yuriorkis Gamboa got knocked out last week. Then there was his recent appearance at Citi Field (if you don’t click any other link, click on that last one). We discussed what may have been the real motive behind the Steve Stoute incident on the HHSR podcast, and of course there’s the infamous Slowbucks chain-snatching episode.
Fif is a master at winning the headlines, but he’s lost his touch when it comes to winning hip-hop. His lyrical acumen hasn’t changed much, but everything else has, which makes for a less appealing overall product. 50 is dangerously close to becoming the rap Tracy McGrady, and when’s the last time you saw T-Mac in uniform?
All jokes aside, I admire T-Mac for taking a stab at baseball. The Sugar Land Skeeters are now the official Atlantic League of Professional Baseball team of HHSR.
Though its back half was a significant step up from its first half, Animal Ambition isn’t a very good album, but it isn’t a total abomination either. Best case scenario: it lays just enough of a groundwork for people to care about 50 Cent’s next release, Street King Immortal (due out in September), and it’s afforded him just enough momentum to bring G-Unit back from the rap graveyard to help jump-start his career at his new label.
Fif stated this album was centered around the idea of motivation and prosperity; let’s see if his lackluster sales (47,000 first week, good for fourth on the charts) and his uninspiring fifth solo LP motivate him to come back even harder in the near future.
My guess is that it will.