Disco de 50 Cent: “Curtis [PA]”

I don't know why 50 thought he could challenge Kanye and win. This CD lacks originality and substance. Same old recycled beats...same old recycled rhymes...same old rah rah shoot em up fake gangsta bull****. My thirteen year old nephew can make a better demo than this. I think the main problem is the collaborations...Timberlake, Timbaland, Robin Thicke???? Last time I checked two of those three couldn't even sing. But anyway, Akon's presence on I'll Still Kill was the only decent part of this mess. So, is this retirement thing still a go? I sure hope he was serious, because I don't know how many more of his boring tracks we can stand to hear.

I'm sorry 50. I love your radio show and most of your unreleased songs and mixtapes. GRODT is one of my favorite hip hop cd's ever. Please don't think I'm a hater. This cd, is absolutely trash, garbage. I really can't remember the last time I listened to a new cd and felt like I was robbed.. and I have actually BEEN ROBBED before.

No doubt there are a few good tracks on here, but overall, we get the point. You don't care too much anymore about creative or interesting lyrics. You go by your formula of killing, selling drugs, one nighters, making money, and repeat 17x.

Your song 'all of me' has mary signing a sick hook but your verses don't revolve around giving all of yourself or a girl giving all of herself to you. Most of it is junk.

Your song 'fully loaded clip' isn't really about a clip.

Your love song with robin thicke isn't really about love either.

And your song 'man down' is half-censored. Really what's the point of even releasing that on a cd with parental advisory sticker?

It wasn't too long ago that you were calling people out on wax for being sensitive and all about love, singing love songs and ballads. Well not only have you completely done a 180 on that but now you're even making young buck sing hooks like on 'Fire'?

This cd is sorry, and not only do I feel sorry for myself for sitting through this cd enough times to realize how it will never grow on me, but I feel sorry for all the little kids giving this cd 5 stars and not realizing how your business model is to find a formula that works and repeat, instead of offering the world a piece of creativity like we know you're capable of. You have enough money, you can buy everything I own x1000, and I live a very happy life. Please go back to just making hot ish and don't worry about beating kanye on opening day, which you're not even coming close to because of the complete wackness which is 'Curtis'.

Same old 50 cents. We've heard it all before. You're a gangsta, you got shot, you're rich. This guy needs to venture out and experience new things so that he doesn't keep rapping about the same topics over and over again. Curtis fooled me into buying this cd. The only track I like on the album is I Get Money. There's nothing new here, and lyrically he's only getting worse. I think he's so rapped up into making commerical music that he's lost sight of the potential he had when he first burst onto the scene. I should have known better than to purchase this after all of the terrible singles he released like Amusement Park. And on top of that he has too many guest appearances, that's usually a sign of a terrible album. Do yourself a favor and save your money!!! Don't worry Curtis you're not getting any more of my money. Not even for your so called greatest hits album. How can you put out a greatest hits album when you made 1 good album (Get Rich or Die Tryin) in your career.

50 Cent came to Chicago talking so much trash about Kanye West. When people brag that hard, you start to wonder is their album really that raw. Initially I wasn't sure if I was going to buy it, but this cat is charming in interviews so I pre-ordered his CD along with Kanye's. The radio interviews he did on WGCI and B-96 were so funny that I took my shoes off and laid up in my car for an hour to listen to the whole thing before I left the parking lot. I didn't want to miss anything he said--the man had grandmothers calling in talking about how much they love him and to drink his water. However, I found a Website to preview the whole CD, and I'm so disappointed. Basic summary of the album: Load a gun, I'm fly, I have money, and if I call my woman a b**ch, I'll apologize with my fingers crossed. AND?! I heard "I Get Money" on "So You Think You Can Dance" and I loved the routine they did to that show. I'd already been bumping "Amusement Park" for quite some time. I thought this album was going to be full of cool songs like that, or at least something clever. The man even had Robin Thicke on here, and I love Thicke, but I was bored to death with that song. "Straight to the Bank" irritates me to no end with that one guy who hangs with him all the time laughing in that anal "Ha ha ha ha ha haaaaaa" chorus. Aargh! Of course the song that really blew me was when he said he's not from the hood, he's still in the hood. The killer part about that was a young lady called in while he was on WGCI and asked him if she could find him in New York, and he said he doesn't hang around like that. Now how are you going to be still in the hood, but then say you don't hang around like that? I hope Kanye's album is better. I'm actually quite shocked that Kanye is being so mellow, when he's usually so vain about his work. I guess 50 decided to take his place.

To the hip-hop purists: remember back in the late nineties when one of your buddies slipped you a mix tape featuring a rapper who mixed wit (How to Rob) with grit (Heat) and filled the void left by the deaths Biggie and Pac?

To the fourteen year old white girls: Remember when the really buff guy that the uber-cute Eminem found who thankfully always walked around without his shirt (except for when he wore his bulletproof vest, but that just upped the bad boy quota), who some was always played in the club, and by club I mean the middle school dance?

And there are the two careers of 50 Cent and it is almost appropriate to write separate reviews for the two different groups of music listeners. But I won't because I'm lazy. But for the rap purists they probably have already given up on 50 after openly courting the suburban females on The Massacre. But 50 was quick to learn just how fickle the teenage girl is (remember O-Town? no? um, never mind) when the soundtrack to Get Rich or Die Trying barely sold a million copies after his first two major label album sold thirteen million combined. And it did not help that Lily Allen was able to take the unlistenable Window Shopper and flip into something extremely catchy.

50, knowing he could never court back the hip-hop purist, completes his sell out on Curtis by bringing in the likes of Justin Timberlake (Ayo Technology), the chick from the Pussycat Dolls (who adds her vocal scratches Fire), and what album these days wouldn't be complete without Akon. But it is laughable heard a dude that looks like Starvin Marvin sing about gang warfare on I Still Kill.

And 50 is quick to readily admit he's has sold out and flaunt it on songs like I Get Money and Straight to the Bank. The two songs are head scratches apposed to head noders. I Get Money for some reason features 50 chanting the cheesy Hip Hop Hooray hook. But when Naughty by Nature does it is cheesy good, when 50 does it is cheesy bad. Then Straight to the Bank features an annoying "ha, ha, ha, ha" chorus, courtesy of the always annoying Tony Yayo, where you have to ask how could anyone think that was a good idea.

Curtis actually starts of with an actual classic 50 sound with My Gun Go Off and gets his gangsta on over a treacherous beat. But that quickly ends as the rest of the album is a muddled mess which is possibly thanks to having seventeen different producers listed for seventeen different tracks. Mary J. Blige brings some class to All of Me but it is just way to late to help the train wreck of an album.

And 50 shows traits of someone trying to grasp onto the spotlight by just recycling past hits. Follow My Lead might as well be the 22nd Question but switched out Nate Dogg with the dude from Growing Pains' kid (a complete downgrade). And I will let you all discuss amongst yourself what the worse metaphor for sex is: Candy Shop or Amusement Park. What is the cheesy metaphor for the next album, a movie theater, cruise ship, state fair? Then Fully Loaded Clip tries to update How to Rob but without the underlining humor.

Even though the battle has been hyped for a month, it is a foregone conclusion that Kanye West will be the chart champ next week. 50 Cent's real competition will be with Kenny Chesney for second. And don't count out the High School Musical 2 Soundtrack pushing 50 down to fourth.