50 Cent never stops exploding with the penultimate show of his Final Leg world tour. Also celebrating 20 years since his debut album Get Rich or Die Tryin’.
Curtis Jackson was born in the borough of Queens in New York City, specifically the South Jamaica era.
He was brought up by his single parent mother until she died when he was 8 years old. She was a drug dealer.
So was Jackson, who sold crack cocaine on the streets whilst in primary school.
As a teen, he trained as a boxer. Life was school, drug-dealing and working out at the gym. At school he brought in narcotics and guns to trade. Caught by a metal detector. Took that as a good lesson.
He was busted for possession eventually. It may have been a set-up. There was prison time and an early release into a boot camp.
The name 50 Cent is borrowed from real life Brooklyn burglar Kelvin Martin. The name alludes to change, or brass in pockets.
It summed up who I was.
Jackson related boxing to being a Rap artist. In that they physically train in that extreme fashion, and they bring the same braggadocio.
Around the same time, he started to develop a serious musical style and received mentoring from Jam Master Jay of seminal Rap group Run-DMC.
His life is reflecting the story of The Wire, possibly the best television drama ever made about the hard life on the streets of America, and the way money at the highest levels of power fuel it all.
Worse was to come.
In 2000, he was shot 9 times at close range, allegedly by Mike Tyson’s bodyguard. Alleged, because this man was killed himself, a few weeks later.
50 Thent. He ith a good man said Iron Mike later.
A life as harsh as James Brown and it resonates with other powerful Black men who experienced epiphanies in prison. Like Malcolm Little who was reborn as Malcolm X.
Any endeavour in life, do it to your utmost. Jackson embodies that. A top Rap artist as well as businessman, investor, professional actor and more.
The opening detonation is What Up Gangsta.
Gangstas, they bump my shit then they know me/ I grew up around some niggas that’s not my homies.
The stage is one huge movie set which keeps morphing. A dozen or more screens make up a collage of images, as shot by movie cameras from the live performance.
There are sparkle explosions, blasts of gas flames, piercing laser lights.
Female dancers are hot and sexy. They also perform acrobatic gymnastic routines to Olympic level. Bumping and grinding, twerking and shaking their money-maker.
The expression of Black male sexuality is at the root of race hate in America. We are talking about the Klu Klux Klan and lynchings. An epidemic in the South, but not confined to that.
The most infamous incident in the Fifties was that of the death of Emmett Till. A 14-year-old youth who was tortured, castrated and lynched because he whistled at a white woman serving in a dairy.
It shocked most of America, especially as the murderers were found innocent by a white jury in Mississippi and remained free. The definitive history was published in the last few years. A number of Rap artists have covered it.
The rise of Rock’n’roll heralded fear of race-mixing amongst the conservative bible belt. That black and white kids would get together over this music that had a rhythmic, primitive, sensuous beat. The Sex Beat!
Little Richard was wanton. Motown presented their artists as safe and acceptable to whites. This pivoted in the Sixties with horrendous race riots, as blacks demanded the equality promised to them by the Civil Rights legislation.
Angela Davis, the Black Panthers, Sly and the Family Stone and of course Brother Brown.
Hip-Hop and Rap artists sing about bitches and ho’s. Openly sexist and misogynistic.
The show has gorgeous white and black women and erotica is set at maximum.
This eroticism is also reflected in the sell-out crowd and the many young beautiful gals. A baroque bacchanal as a lot of pre-loading went on outside the venue.
This is a major part of the show, and you can’t help but embrace it.
Jackson is supported by 2 other vocalists. There are live musicians, not just DJs.
A drummer that is hard on the One and delivers the heavy artillery all night. Also, guitars, bass and keyboards.
I Get Money. I write the cheque before the baby comes/ Who the fuck cares/ I’m stanky rich/ Die tryna spend this shit. Great free-flow Rap with steel hard rhythmic drive.
Hate It or Love It. A little more melodic. My favourite rapper used to sing/ Check, check out my melody/ Wanna live good/ So shit, I sell dope.
The backing images change to the streets of Chicago or Baltimore. A window advertises a 99-cent shop. That would account for inflation.
Disco Inferno shakes ass to the max. Male break dancers spin on their heads. 50 in the house/ Bounce/ The flow sounds sick over Dre drums, Nigga!
Candy Store starts with Eastern tones and a snake dance. A moog raga. The dancer breaks out multiple tumbles. I’ll let you lick the lollipop.
It took over 40 years to get an answer song to Millie Small’s My Boy Lollipop.
Both songs from The Massacre (2005).
Jerimih opens the entertainment tonight with a 30-minute set that contains multitudes.
Jeremy Felton is a Rap artist from Southside Chicago who has had several Billboard chart hits since his first album in 2009.
He played on 50 Cent’s Disco Inferno.
This is my first time discovering him, so I sat back and enjoyed the flow.
Starts with DJ Caution, I am assuming.
Ominous synth drone echoing Suicide to gain our attention. Then announces it’s a Rap Hip-Hop paaarty!
Syncopated beats and get outta the way bitch! Some cowboy boogie and imitation scratching.
One day, I would love to hear real turntable scratching again.
Jerimih comes on with a Rap partner. So do sexy women carrying flaming torches. Do you want new shit or old shit? Undecipherable shouts and screams from the audience.
He asks the crowd to sing Fuck you all the time.
The show is heading for the overload as women pole dance and one plays a violin.
He says this is the last show of their tour. On the road since July. There is one more in the Middle East tomorrow.
Tasty breakbeats close a frantic and quite stunning show.
That is until 50 Cent launches. Mines bigger, I’m top dog.
Hustler’s Ambition may be the most melodic. Pop Gangster Rap.
One sequence becomes sci-fi and Techno, reminiscent of the Jonzun Crew and Pack Jam and Space Cowboy. Images of AI cyborgs and double helix strands of DNA.
Jackson sits behind a grand piano and sings with a different Soul voice. Like Stevie Wonder when he was transitioning from Little Stevie.
The whole show is seamless and expertly choreographed. There may be 3 or 4 silent gaps in the evening.
50 Cent ends the show with huge gas flames and cities erupting in fire. It is a stunning potent image and is a herald for the times we are in.
Rev. Orange Peel
Photography by Leonie Moreland
50 CENT
DJ Caution & Jeremih
