With the majority of the singles having already been released during the last few months, it isn’t hard to piece 50 Cent’s upcoming album together. And whether he decides to add an extra track here or there, or toys with idea of re-arranging the tracklist; “Animal Ambition” will remain one of the worst albums in contemporary Hip-Hop.
With his slurred nonchalant vocals and contrived lyrics, 50 Cent is definitely one of the main rappers responsible for destroying the Hip-Hop genre. Anybody who remembers the travesties that were “Candy Shop” and “Ayo Technology” will agree that when discussing the ruination of the genre; 50 Cent’s name will definitely be up there in the Top 10. “Animal Ambition” on the other hand, will never reach the Top 10 of anything.
This slack and amateurish album opens with the flaccid song “Hold On”, a track with a mellow choir sample and 50 Cent’s now standard spiritless delivery. But by including horribly tired lyrics like “Gold Medal ’round my neck like I won the Olympics” and also a horrendous singing chorus; the opener makes the listener want to switch off right then and there.
If you resist yanking out the power cable, the second track is “Don’t Worry Bout It” which features Yo Gotti and an annoyingly repetitive echoing synth. This track is littered with more tacky lyrics such as “my closet filled with that fly shit, black card when I buy shit”. It’s almost as if 50 wishes it was still the noughties, if you need proof just peep the acquisitive chorus…
“don’t worry about how I get my money, bitch just know I get my money
don’t worry about how I spend my money, boy I got a lot
don’t worry about that car I drive, don’t worry about that bike I ride
don’t worry about them diamonds and the bezel on my watch”
I mean, if it wasn’t for the quick Instagram reference in this track, you’d swear it was 2003. Now that would be something to worry ’bout.
Next is the title track “Animal Ambition” which features some confused production complete with seventies funk, low pitch vocals, roars, elephant noises, and some strange yelps. 50 Cent, oblivious to the fact that New York Hip-Hop is currently making a comeback, tries to put on a southern accent on this track, and coupled with the clichéd “Eye Of The Tiger” lyric, “Animal Ambition” makes a great job, not of showing 50’s range; but instead his age.
Being a star of the noughties, it seems that 50 Cent just can’t help travelling back to that gaudy decade at every opportunity he gleans. With the track “Pilot” he whips out some of the worst Hip-Hop contrivances since his 2005 “Bulletproof” game. Just check out this hook..
“me I’m like a Pilot, G5 Jet I’m fly shit, you cannot deny it…
…bitches be on my dick, Designer threads I’m fly shit, you cannot deny it”
With the horridly Hip-Pop-ish utterance of “Oh no, no no no no” every two seconds, “Pilot” has to be the worst track on the album so far. But wait, the next half of the album sets a new record in sounding out-of-style and shitty.
“Smoke” is an auto-tuned crapfest courtesy of Trey “Lame” Songz who sounds like the bastard child of Chris Brown and Justin Timberlake. With its out of date synths and with 50 saying shit like “Pimpin’ Ain’t Easy” (c’mon Curtis; it’s 2014 for fucks sake!) listening to “Smoke” makes you feel like you were in some kind of throwback hallucination.
After this comes “Every Time I Come Around” which features more wannabe singing and yet more accent fakery. And don’t worry, the crappy lyrics are still on show…
“…That Hard White, I Flip That…”
“…Diamonds On Me, I Flash That…”
“…My Stocks Run Across NASDAQ…”
It’s at this point in the album that you realise there won’t be anything worth re-listening to, just a lot of noughties-sounding contrived crap.
The next joint is “Irregular Heartbeat”, an ironic title since this flat-ass album is enough to put anybody’s heart into bradycardia. And after this quiet, whispering trash, comes the track “Hustler” which with its messy organ, sounds so dire that it will make you wanna break your fucking SMS headphones. With 50 squealing “I’m A Hustler Baby” in this shitty song, it baffles the mind figuring out what part of investing in Vitamin Water makes him a fucking hustler? 50 Cent needs to take a look at his Reebok and Right Guard deals and wake up to the fact that he’s no longer street and no longer relevant (if in fact he ever was).
Back to the album, if you ignore the next two embarrassingly cringe-enducing tracks “Twisted” and “Winner Circle” which are both sugar-frosted Pop Tracks from Diabetic Hell; the final song “Chase The Paper” which sounds like someone leaning on the keys of a church organ (probably because they fell asleep from listening to this album) is possibly the worst. With 50 spitting bullshit like “I’m still a rida… you chase the ho’s, I chase the paper”, you just wish that someone would nudge him and let him know it’s 2014, not 2004.
50 Cent is a creature of the last decade. He had a Pro-George Bush stance, he sucked up to the shitty duo of Dre and Eminem, he released horrid films, computer games, and music which as a whole helped tarnish black culture and simultaneously rid any credibility from a once respectable music genre. Just thinking back at his career is a nightmare in itself, filled with cheesy “Gangsta” lyrics juxtaposed with Justin Timberlake collabos. Recalling the appalling “G-G-G-G-U-niiiiit” call and that terrible “go shorty, it’s your birthday” line is enough to induce sweating and palpations. Shit, I might just pinch myself right now to get out of this noughties flashback.
On the Deluxe Edition of the album, “Animal Ambition” contains three Bonus Tracks just in case you want to prolong the throwback agony. First up, there is the super-dull “The Funeral” which may as well not have been recorded. This is followed by “You Know” which sounds like an 16-bit console being flung through a sell-out convention. And finally “Flip On You”, which at least features Schoolboy Q delivering a slightly modern flow. But with the chipmunk sounding vocal sample constantly playing in the back and the bog-standard 50 Cent rap; this track closes an album which is so bad; it makes you wonder if everybody involved was deaf. And if you do have a hearing problem or just love wack irrelevant rappers, lame lyrics, and lame production; worry not, for “Street King Immortal” (50’s next album) is coming soon.
50 Cent’s ambition to be an animal has come true for him, I guess… Although, with this Mickey Mouse album, he’s more of a Disney animal.
50’s Spent.
Categories: Artwork, Celebrities, Music, Reviews
WHAT WENT WRONG WITH...? 
You found “The Funeral” dull?
I felt like it had this sinister street vibe, the side of 50 Cent I miss. The gritty street thug. I don’t want the rich fiddy, who constantly brags aout how much of a rich playa he is. It’s so boring. I don’t expect hip hop to make a comeback anytime soon. I still look out for Pro Era and Joey Badass and Big KRIT is good too. But I really don’t know of any comitted HIP HOP artist. They all more or less falter, and go back to singing about cash, hoes and partying. There’s more to life man, for fuck sake…
To be honest, I never liked anything 50 did since he was signed by a major. I liked “How To Rob” & “Be A Gentleman” etc. but I think he’s become a rapper who conforms to Hip-Hop’s stereotypes (Ex-Gangsta/Thug who’s now Rich). I didn’t personally like The Funeral, the whole album was trash in my opinion. I definitely agree that Pro Era are one of the few cliques that are still putting out real Hip-Hop. Even their latest release “The Shift” which was a short EP kept me nodding my head and putting it on repeat. I expect big things from Joey’s “B4.Da.$$” LP.
Yeah man I agree, Joey Badass and the pro era clique are the only ones I know of who really dedicate themselves to being creative and simply make good music and keep that hip hop theme flowing. It’s like they do their own thing, instead of allow themselves to be molded by what other people want from them. I sometimes think that rappers feel like they have to rap about how much bitchez they have, or how much money they get, because they feel like people will judge them for it if they don’t. So as much as 50 cent acts like he doesn’t care what people think, I think he does a lot.
But yeah, I have yet to touch other more newer hip hop stuff, I recently got introduced to MF DOOM, and I still need to check him out. I think Big KRIT is doing okay too. Kendrick Lamar was good, but now how the hell is he doing a collab with fucking 2chainz? I almost thought he sold out.
Also 50 Cent turned “bubblegum” early in the noughties though, I agree, I never liked songs like “Candy Shop”. I still can’t believe that he still raps about the EXACT same themes now as he did back in the noughties. Money, hoes and stuntin, that’s all pretty much. That’s why I miss his street thug side so much, cuz it’s refreshing and just more exciting. I think that rap has become so formulaic and almost “bubblegum” pop rap even. But then again, what else can you expect from mainstream “hip hop”?
Exactly, most mainstream Hip-Hop out these days is essentially Pop music. Pro Era remind me of Boot Camp Clik who were one of the few Hip-Hop acts of the nineties that didn’t sell out. The “Real Hip-Hop” these days is represented by only a few acts; there’s The Underachievers, Flatbush Zombies (particularly Meechy), Bishop Nehru, Que Hampton, and then further underground there’s people like Meyhem Lauren and Cool Hand Lukey. It’s quite annoying that I can list all the real rappers in one sentence but it would take a whole page to name all the lame shit. Nice talkin to you man. One.
I thought I was the only one feeling like this. Wiz Khalifa, Rick Ross etc. Were exciting when they were now, but now they’re just so awful. And yeah it’s a bit too long to explain why rap is a bit like pop music nowadays. But most obviously, it’s like I said before, that it’s not about creativity and just creating nice songs anymore, it’s more about what the majority wants to hear, or how to cover up insecurities about money and hoes.
It’s like the same thing over and over, with the same sounding beats, over and over man. That’s why I’m like thirsting for any sort of rap or hip hop that is different.
And by the way, thanks for listing some of those rappers, it will be my first time listening to most of them. I already know The Underachievers and Flatbush Zombies, but I haven’t delved into them a lot yet.
Oh wait, by the way, I think Nicki Minaj is the perfect example of how she went from this “raw” rapper, acting all street and that, to becoming this “bubblegum” pop “singer”? I don’t even exactly know what she’s doing nowadays anyway, is she rapping, or singing? It’s like she swings from rapping one time, and then when it suits her, she goes making club tunes?
But yeah for me, she’s like the perfect example. Which is a shame, because it was nice to see a female rapper again.
I’m not even trying to say that she should only stick to rap, but what I mean is that she was in it for the money from the start it seems. It was never about just making music for the sake of it, for the sake of just having fun you know. But it was more like “how can I get famous?” or “what will make me a lot of money?”. I mean yeah if she wants to do that she can do that, but what pisses me off, is how she presented this facade in the beginning and then made a complete one-eighty turn when the time was right.
But yeah, it was nice talking to you too man.
Peace.
50 was never a great lyricist, but Get Rich Or Die Tryin’ was a game-changer. It had a right mix of street tracks and club hits. In Da Club is what club songs should be; catchy and easy to dance to. Tracks such as Heat, Many Men, and Patiently Waiting prove that 50 can rap. However after the debut album, everything he released was mediocre at best. The Massacre was Get Rich Or Die Tryin’ without the swagger and hunger that 50 Cent showed on his debut. Apart from tracks such Disco Inferno, Position of Power etc., the album was a disappointment. Songs such Candy Shop and Piggy Bank were total garbage. 50 Cent has become a lazy rapper. Constantly rapping about being rich and fucking bitches. No wonder he became irrelevant. The times have changed. He would have still been in the charts if he didn’t beef as much. The people that 50 beefed with reads like a list. After all the years, 50 has not changed one bit. Listening to Animal Ambition is listening to The Massacre all over again. He wishes it was still the 2000s and that is why we hear so many 2000s-sounding tracks. The only good songs were Twisted and Winners Circle. The rest of the album was garbage, particularly Don’t Worry ‘Bout It and Pilot. Smoke was the worst track on the album. Shitty production, shitty rapping, shitty singing, and worst of all shitty lyrics. Chase the Paper had a nice beat and a decent hook, but it is ruined by shit lyrics. Prodigy’s verse was just pathetic! “She hump my leg like a horny pit”? Seriously? And Kidd Kidd is just awful! Every verse he rapped throughout the album was garbage. What did 50 Cent see in him? Animal Ambition sucked, still looking forward to Street King Immortal though.
50s spent indeed. Now that he’s bankrupt, will anyone see the irony behind this Glam Rap/Hip-Pop trend.
I thought that for something to go wrong, it had to be right in the first place. 50 Cent has always been utterly weak throughout his career. Frankie Boyle summed it up perfectly in his book Work, Consume, Die! when he said that when his album Get Rich Or Die Trying, he sadly got rich.