50 Cent at Hammersmith Apollo: Review

How homo-erotic is Fiddy with his shirt off? That's a question for another day. Here's my review of Fiddy's Hammersmith Apollo gig on July 2nd. I do have to say that I might not like his music and believe he personifies everything wrong with mainstream hip hop today (conspicuous consumpution, materialsm, mysogyny, style over substance, promoting the gangsta stereotype, gloating), but I DO respect him and his approach to the BUSINESS of hip hop.

GIG REVIEW

50 Cent at Hammersmith Apollo
3 stars

Curtis ‘50 Cent’ Jackson, who turns 32 on Friday, is the most recognisable and bankable hip-hop star on the planet. Since announcing himself in 2003 with Dr Dre produced global hit single In Da Club, 50 Cent’s (aka Fiddy) sold over 20 million records. His third LP Curtis, scheduled for simultaneous worldwide release in September, looks set to consolidate his position.

Last year Forbes magazine estimated Jackson’s take home pay was $33m, and Rolling Stone placed him second to P Diddy in the rap rich list of 2006 (Diddy’s been in the rap game for a decade and a half and Fiddy half a decade). As the music industry has struggled to fathom how to remain profitable in the era of downloading and file-sharing, 50 Cent’s approached rap as a business with all the determination and acumen of a man who’s apprenticeship was an adolescence selling crack on Bronx streets.

Hammersmith Apollo’s only two-thirds full and we know Fiddy’s arrival is imminent when the DJ repeatedly plays a gun being loaded, locked and fired. On the second bang 50 Cent bounds on stage singing Thug You Up and emptying his water bottle on the first few rows. Fiddy looks like an average hip hop fan in a baggy red-t shirt, blue jeans and white hand towel hanging out of his back pocket and a red New Era Cap (worn back to front) over a white bandana.

Despite it’s crass gloating, new single Straight To The Bank (chorus: ‘I’m laughing all the way to the bank, ha-ha ha-ha, ha-ha ha-ha’) is received like an old favourite. Superproducer Timbaland (Missy Elliot, Justin Timberlake and Nelly Furtado) joins 50 Cent for Shake That Ass, strutting around the stage and contributing a few ‘yeahs’.

50 Cent’s an animated performer, his arms constantly move, directing the audience to bounce, dance, clap and raise the middle finger, and he gets momentary respite when leading a sing-a-long of club hit Outta Control.

Fiddy briefly stokes his ongoing beef with The Game, by skewing the Compton rapper’s biggest hit Love Me Or Hate Me. He strips down to a white singlet, revealing thick, shiny arms like a boa constrictor for the R’n’B-flavoured 21 Questions. Before the ode to a gangster’s moll is finished he’s bare-chested with a bulging upper torso reminiscent of Lou Ferrigno in the Incredible Hulk.

Live, it’s obvious that 50 Cent has established two personas: the softly spoken, almost shy rapper with melodic, sing-a-long choruses that enable him to conquer daytime radio and MTV and infiltrate global markets. The other is the thuggish rapper who spits lyrics and doesn’t sing, and maintains his gangster rap fan-base with a stream of fiery, no-holds-barred mixtapes. Tonight we’re mainly in the company of the latter.

50 Cent’s lyrics and delivery are straight from the keep-it-short-and-simple school of rap: there’s little complexity or depth, making for nursery rhyme choruses that feed a hysterical atmosphere, and means Fiddy never loses hold of his audience who sing or mouth the words to every song, verbatim.

50 Cent delivers his biggest hit In Da Club stood tall on top of a table and chest puffed out, as his upper body, bejewelled Jesus piece (crucifix), thick bracelet, watch and earring, glistens. He cannot be faulted for effort, energy or effervescence.

Jackson’s entrepreneurial spirit is what Alan Sugar dreams of discovering through The Apprentice and is why 50 Cent in 2007 is about so much more than just music: he’s a multinational lifestyle and entertainment brand encompassing a record label, clothing and footwear range, ringtones, energy drinks, film company, book publisher, computer games and condoms.

In these terms 50 Cent is the ultimate capitalist: his only concern is making mountains of money, and spending huge amounts of it as conspicuously as possible. His meteoric rise from drug dealer to global pop star is the embodiment of the American Dream. With Jay Z in retirement, it’s hard to see who’s going to challenge Jackson as the undisputed CEO of hip-pop.

Rahul Verma

A version of this appeared in the Independent newspaper on Wednesday July 4th