50 Cent - The Massacre

If you've read much of this site, you'd be forgiven for thinking that I didn't know much about hip hop culture. You might even think that I'm disconnected from 'the street', but you'd be sorely mistaken.

Like most men my age, I know all the words to the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. In fact I'm relatively familiar with a number of Fresh Prince songs. Not only that - I also know that 50 Cent is pronounced Fiddy. Check me out homez.

I got a lot of 'speck for Fiddy. He one bad G. And now I'm going to tell you why. 50 Cent starts his album with 'Intro'. Wise man. You can always get round me that way, even if you're the kind of person who isn't embarrassed to call an album The Massacre.

Track two, 'In My Hood' - presumably the contents are 50 Cent's head. We can only hope that the hood is over his head, but his arms aren't in the sleeves and that he's running round pretending to be Superman with his coat playing the part of Superman's cape.

However, in the debit column, we must include 'Candy Shop' which is a right dirge. The best thing about this song is trying to work out just how inappropriate the emotionless murmurs of 'yeah' and 'uh-huh' are. It's the most pedestrian song you've ever heard in your life. No-one would be moved to any kind of spontaneous appreciation, as signified by a 'yeah'. You'd think the place was rockin' the way Fiddy keeps saying it. But it isn't. It isn't rocking at all. Far from it.

It's a barely credible delivery anyway. It's the kind of 'yeah' that a teenager gives when they agree to do some sort of inconsequential task, but they're not happy about it. "So you're going to clear the table then?" "Yeah." It's the equivalent of whooping during a school teacher's rendition of Scarborough Fair