![]() There are some kids out there who do believe their favorite rappers are these Al Capone like figures, with a bevy of exotically beautiful women pleasuring them as they wish in between breaks counting their never ending stream of money. His major hits have always been mind numbingly unoriginal, with each helping to project the image of truly fearsome gangster to whoever is willing to believe it. With countless references to murder, sex, drugs, and other magical gangster tales, there’s absolutely zero substance to the lyricism, but then again 50 Cent is not known as a deep lyricist whatsoever. Lyrically, the album is subpar if not atrocious from start to finish. This problem has plagued the genre for as long as it’s been in existence, and still will as long as major labels and artists want to make money and sell records. This is certainly not a new problem in rap music. 50 Cent is trying to appease too many people at once, with his thug friendly gangster tunes, and his radio friendly gangster tunes. “Irregular Heartbeat” is a solemn and almost morose sounding track that exemplifies what gangster rap used to be about, and it’s immediately followed by a radio friendly cheery track, “Twisted”, that feels incredibly out of place. The projection of what they were going for on each track is what leaves me scratching my head the most. It’s there’s an odd disenfranchisement from one track to the next instrumentally, with each sounding so wildly separate from the last, that leaves the album feeling just plain disjointed. It’s not that this album is lo-fi or underproduced. Production wise, the tracks are very uneven, with the most pristine and “wiped down” sounding being “Pilot”, which is one the only track that actually works altogether, lyrically and instrumentally. ![]() You have the opening track, “Hold On”, which is extremely basic and subdued, and the title track, “Animal Ambition”, which has this clunky synth bass rumbling through it as 50 growls and tries to make us believe he’s an animal. It’s almost as if he and his producers couldn’t decide whether they wanted to sound stripped down and basic or clunky and excessive. Musically, “Animal Ambition” is about as mish-mash as can be. 50 Cent has always been all image, and this will surely never change. One look at the first two albums, you see him shirtless, flexing as if he’s posturing to hang you from a balcony window. 50 Cent is a rapper whose almost as mathematically divisible as the vitamin water he owns a share in. I didn’t expect to listen to “Animal Ambition” and hear politically conscious rap, nor should you. It’s consistently about those three things exactly. From his major label debut, “Get Rich Or Die Trying”, there hasn’t been an album he delved off into the abstract and rapped about the environmental dangers of fracking or the history of the stamp. Money, hoes, and drugs.” A lot of people would argue you just have to know where to look to find rap music that doesn’t employ these themes specifically, but certainly 50 Cent is not helping anyone’s case. When people pick at modern rap music, they tend to explain their argument by saying one thing. I can’t imagine who would be moved by songs like these, but nonetheless, there must be someone out there in the over 8 billion people existing right now. Sadly, everything I just described is the exact opposite of “Animal Ambition”, the latest album from rapper 50 Cent. ![]() To excavate something you didn’t even know you were feeling, and make you feel it. Music is meant to strike something within, to sound like the song was written for you even though you know it wasn’t. Something that conjures images resonating within me and accompanies them to what it is I’m listening to. The best bands and artists I listen to are the ones that I can close my eyes and watch a film to. ![]() I envision the sounds, I see the lyrics, I can watch the music and listen to it at the same time. Music, although auditory, is as visual for me as looking at a Carravaggio painting would be. Whether I lay down or just sit up in a chair, I like to rest my head back and let the sounds draw the pictures in my head, rather than create them myself. I like to listen to music with my eyes closed. Review Summary: Ambition is a term not applicable here at all. ![]()
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