The question is: Should We Believe The Hype?

Well, you should and you shouldn't. 50 Cent has excellant production, but he has failed to have done anything ground breaking or new. Now, don't get me wrong, i COMPLETELY respect how he got into the game, but most of the subjects he talks about have already been done. Also, they're are many tracks that weren't added to the album. Where was "The Realest" & "In The Hood" ? They were high quality, yet i don't find them anywhere else except on bootleg cds

But, Don't worry, there are some good tracks. "Many Men" is a song about life. 50 Cent isn't everybody's best friend, and he knows it. It's your basic "i'll get you before you get me" scanario. "In Da Club", although is played out, talks about...well...being in the club. Its a track of 50 Boasting of what he has, what he does, and what he can do. "If I Can't" is a track of "i could do it better than you can"...nothing new, although the beat is hot! "What Up Gangsta" is like a lil anthem, short but good. "Wanksta", one of 3 bonus tracks, is the famous (but not known throughly) as the Ja Rule Diss. Its catchy i admit that, but doesn't show the full potential of 50 Cent. "21 Question" is probably one of the better & decent tracks...lyric-wise. Its a change from the "i'm better than you" personna since it talks about fame & love. "Blood Hound" has a nice flow, nice rhymes, nice beat, one of the better songs...

With the good, comes the bad. "Patiently Waiting" is one of the most overhyped tracks. Just because Eminem's name is near "featuring" doesn't guarentee it as a classic. People assume too much and hype up too much medium quality stuff. While Eminem does have a good verse, its still not enough to bring this song up where it needs to be. People, Stop Frontin!!!...well...i'm not even gonna get into that. The song is mediocre, but the world treats it as if it was a classic...please. "Like My Style" sounds very rushed, incomplete, since the hook sounds a lil bit off sync with the beat. Also, only almost all of the songs, 50 Cent attempts going vocal. Face it, that seems to be the trend these days, rappers that sing. I'll admit, sometimes it does flow nicely...but other times, he tends to just repeat the title of the song...and thats it...no effort at all. Why do rappers keep singing?! I Still don't understand that.

If your looking for some tracks laced with nice beats (thx to dr. dre), this is the album your probably looking for. Has good rhymes, not great, but good enough to flow with the beats nicely (in most cases). 50 Cent can come off arrogant at times...but thats just how he is. This album is definantly not bad, but i can't say its a classic. 50 Cent has the production down, but he still needs to work on those rhymes, since his rhymes seem shallow & once again, arrogant-sounding. On "Patiently Waiting", he says quote "When I Die, They'll Read This And Say A Genius Wrote It"...highly doubtful. I mean, i'll admit, 50 Cent does know how to make hits...but this makes him seem more like P. Diddy rather than Tupac, Biggie, Rakim, or Nas...

[Beats 90/100] - Strong point of album
[Lyrics 80/100] - I've heard better
[Creativity 75/100] - Lots of Repeating
[Flow 90/100] - I'll admit they're catchy
[Overall 80/100] - Its good...but not THAT good. He shouldn't have rushed it... He probably got a little hype over the success of "Wanksta"


What was I thinking   April 8, 2004
Samario C. Oliver (VA)
12 out of 13 found this review helpful

When I gave this album 3 stars at one time?! After listening to AZ, then listening to this, a thought hit me in the head like a Mike Tyson punch, this album is as bad as it gets.

First off this guy bites off everything in his site!! The album title get rich or die tryin is a similar sound to AZ's Doe or Die, just longer. The only reason why he's famus is because he got shot 9 times, and he's a fool on stereroids. He's all over the media, and is an annoyment on MTV and BET!

Anyway on the album, his lyrics are childish, and nursery rhymes, along with a lame horrible flow, with good beats, but putting him on the tracks made em sound bad. He's a million miles away from being Pac, and Ja Rule has a good chance of beating him.

If you like pop rap, odds are you brought it, and after reading this review, you hate me. But for those who like real hip hop, understand this is garbage, and is doesn't even to deserve to be called a rapper from queens(Nas, AZ, and, Mobb Deep hold true to the queensbridge name) it's not even worth 50 cents itself. It doesnt' even deserve to be on the shelves!!

Interesting fact:This fool dissin Ja Rule, yet he's copying Ja's style! I mean he has a fake gangsta image, and club songs, love songs, and he acually sings songs, imitating Ja Rule. And also, he used Pacs rhymes on the Hail Mary remix from Tupac's songs Hail Mary, and against all odds, to diss Ja while using Tupac's rhymes for exploitation. What a joke, a discrace, and a cancer to Hip-Hop.(Just like chingy, Juelz Santana(He has good beats, but his rhymes are completly senseless, Ludacris, G-Unit, J-kwon, Bow Wow, and u know who else)

peace


50 sucks   December 18, 2003
Sea Bass (Iowa)
12 out of 13 found this review helpful

50 Cent is a terrible rapper. He has no talent. Being shot 9 times is no excuse for sucking this bad. He mumbles about who knows what but we can assume that hes saying how much money he has and using the "n" word every 5 seconds. Do yourself a favor: save your money for real music. If you're going to listen to rap listen to Atmosphere.


YO Yo Dawg Fershizzle What What Word Dawg G Homie n****ga!!!   January 20, 2005
Simon (New York)
15 out of 17 found this review helpful

Sorry if the title disillusioned you, but I assure you, my rating of one, very lonely star, does not. This CD is an abortion in musical form. Its physically painful to listen to this, and perhaps detrimental to ones health, both mental and otherwise.

Look, I love rap. I'm African American. My parents came to America from Africa at a young age. I was seriously considering just dropping all intelligence and wordsmithing from this review and just making a big-ass paragraph of rappers who are better than 50 Cent, but anyone who would be targeted by that paragraph would probably be giggling themselves to death while reading this paragraph due to the neverending stream of jokes questioning my sexual preference made by them. Hell, the target audience of that paragraph have absolutley no idea what I just said.

Bottom line: If you like this music, you need a slap to the face, prescribed by Dr. Youhavebadtasteinmusic. There is not one single moment of this CD that I thought "ok, maybe fifty does have potential to not suck". Mere seconds in, you know you're in for a crappy CD. Every song is layer upon layer of big, thick, stupid beats made worse by the big, thick, stupid rapping on top of it. Its like you piled crap on top of crap, and shoved it into the disc player of your walkman. 50 Cent's not even good at freestyling. He's not good at anything. He's Eminem's black puppet. Eminem uses him to be able to throw the n-word around without reprucssions and make some money on the side as well.

Ok. The above wasn't the bottom line. It wasn't even the bottom paragraph. So sue me.

There is a thick line between good music and bad music, and this CD passed it hours ago at Mach 5 in a SCRAMJet. I'd mention some good music to listen to, but good music is all in the eye of the beholder, but the there is some stuff that is outright crap, and is ignored by most of the hardcore music nerd community. People who live and love music do NOT like Britney Spears. Just open your ears and close your eyes. Don't listen to something cause it was on MTV, listen to something cause you think its good, or because you heard it was good from someone different from you. Music brings people together, music teaches you things, music introduces you to someone elses viewpoint, music will show you the world and bring you back in just under an hour. You know how 50 Cent raps about God or whatever? Forget that. The greatest CDs out there, listened to from the first song to the last with no interuption will give you a religious experience unlike any other. The reason I hate 50 Cent so much is that he betrays all these things, and is the face of the kind of rap that has given rap such a bad image over the years. Good rap is out there, trust me. I have an IQ of 140, and I rather enjoy good rap, so don't be such a skeptic. Check out some college radio, talk to the dude in charge of the rap section at your local music store, and tell him you're looking for the best rap money can buy. If he's qualified for his job, the CDs you buy will change your life for the better. You'll never be ashamed of something you believe in after listening to Public Enemies' "It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back". Then theres The Roots' "Do You Want More?!?!?!" and Del Tha Funkee Homosapien and De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest and MF Doom and Eyedea & Abilities (white rappers) and Atmosphere (a white rapper) and OutKast (older stuff) and Swollen Members and Black Star and Mos Def and Talib Kweli and Zion-I... Theres just so much music out there, so put down this CD, and start your musical expedition ASAP. I guarantee you'll thank me.

-Simon
Lover of good music,
Hater of bad music,
Aspiring music nerd.


no stars if i could   June 4, 2004
Paul Pelt (washington, d.c. United States)
18 out of 21 found this review helpful

pure garbage. to rap means to talk and implies that
you have something to say, i got some rap for you,
'this disc sucks'.