Word: albums
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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50’s newest album, “Before I Self Destruct,” reveals the shortcomings of this formula. As before, the album is limited to the rap’s essential subjects: self-promotion, industry feuding, and street cred. This newest release also resembles 50’s past success in its stellar production and moments of great lyrical intensity. But “Before I Self Destruct” is limited by its combination of forgettable hooks, tired themes and unfocused narratives...
...more traditional songs are also strong, and a few even grasp at the greatness of his earlier work. “Psycho,” the newest installment in a series of Eminem-50 Cent duets that have appeared on each of 50’s albums, is one of the best songs the two MC’s have made together. One of three Dr. Dre-produced songs on the album, “Psycho” has a slow-moving and tense beat that is punctuated by a sweeping, dramatic string sample. 50 returns to his most successful...
...baby burn” and “Gun pop! One shot! Body drop, it wasn’t me!” All three of these songs concern 50’s recklessness, violence, and drug history, and end up cheapening some of the better songs on the album by creating a sense of tedium...
There are a number of flannel-wearing, facial-hair-sporting folk who took a cursory glance at the album cover of “Don’t Stop,” its subject replete with neon lettering and flawlessly coiffed ’80s hair, and dismissed it without a second thought. But while the music the album contains has a lot in common with the 1980s-throwback synthpop those people believed they were tossing aside, it also does not deserve such a careless dismissal...
...Black Germans say they've been speaking out about racism in their country for years, with little progress to show for it. In 2007, the black German actress and director Mo Asumang released a film called Roots Germania about her search for her family's descendants. And the latest album and book by the popular Hamburg rapper Samy Deluxe, That's Where I'm From, released earlier this year, deals extensively with his feelings about being black in Germany. Wallraff's film is seen as a dated contribution to what is already a lively discussion. Some consider it little more...