Why Fans Are Wrong About 50 Cent’s The Massacre

After having one of the most impactful debut albums with Get Rich or Die Tryin’, 50 Cent followed up with 2005’s The Massacre. Though selling 1.14 million copies in just four days, the reception to the album was lukewarm. 20 years on from its release, feelings towards it have slightly improved, but stayed the same with most Hip-Hop fans.

For me personally, The Massacre shows 50 Cent still at the peak of his powers from a song-writing perspective. It may genuinely be one of the most over hated Hip-Hop albums ever. It may not be on the same level as his debut, but it still possesses both great singles and album cuts, which leaves me scratching my head as to why Hip-Hop fans were so disappointed in this album.

We are two decades removed from 50 Cent’s monstrous, albeit short run at the top of the Hip-Hop mountain, and I don’t think we’ve ever seen a run quite like it. At most it lasted four years, between 2003 and 2007. Starting from the success of his debut album, Get Rich or Die Tryin’, and ending right when he was outsold by Kanye West, during their sales war between their respective albums, Curtis and Graduation. From then on his power within music as a whole started to calm down, and even though his fourth album, 2009’s Before I Self Destruct, was the third highest selling rap album of 2009 and provided another hit record in that of “Baby By Me” featuring Ne-Yo, it was clear that his time as one of the biggest rappers was coming to end. With artists such as Lil Wayne and Kanye West moving the needle, and “street gangsta rap” wasn’t a commercial phenomenon.

However, if you speak with many Hip-Hop fans they would tell you that the beginning of the end for 50 Cent already started with his second studio album, 2005’s The Massacre. His sophomore album has been given the trope of a “sophomore slump”, which is essentially when an artist has an acclaimed debut album, but fails to follow up with their second project. This trope that has been given out to the likes of Snoop Dogg, Raekwon and even Nas at one point. For many years this trope was placed on The Massacre, and though I’ve started to see some fans support this album, the tide still hasn’t fully turned.

To fully understand why fans turned their backs on The Massacre, you need to fully comprehend the magnitude of how big Get Rich or Die Tryin’ was. In a throwback review, I mention a segment from Jay-Z’s interview with The Breakfast Club back in 2013. Where Jay-Z recounts telling, more so warning, the Roca-Fella camp that “50 Cent is coming”. See 50 Cent had such a buzz in the streets, he was perhaps destined to be a force to be reckoned with, and when his smash hit single “In da Club” came out everyone else had to sit on the side lines. His debut album would be released a month later and it became one of the most successful debut albums in Hip-Hop history, propelling 50 Cent to not just rap stardom, but a star in the music world as a whole. On top of its commercial success, Get Rich or Die Tryin’ is still heralded a great album from a musical standpoint, with the album cuts gaining just as much recognition and love as the singles.

Now to start off, I will admit The Massacre isn’t as good as 50’s debut and it’s not close between them. There are some criticisms you can throw out there. One of them being its runtime, as it’s much longer than Get Rich or Die Tryin’, possessing six more tracks and leading to The Massacre being less consistent with a few fillers and skips (I’ll get to those later). With that being said, if I criticise any parts of the album that’s not to say it’s a bad or an average project. I feel quite the opposite actually, The Massacre is a good project in its own right, but many have felt quite the opposite and I am hear to defend it.

It’s alleged that much of The Massacre had to be re-worked, due to 50 sacrificing multiple songs for former G-Unit member, The Game, for his now classic debut album, The Documentary. Singles such as “Hate It or Love It” and “Higher” were said to have been recorded for The Massacre, but this is still disputed to this day. If it is true, then 50 Cent is one hell of a good sport, because those records are massive highlights on The Game’s debut album. Re-working an album is tough position to be in for an artist, there are countless artists that have faced this issue due reasons such as album leaks and have led to detrimental affects. One example is Nas, when his music leaked back in the late-1990s, which led to him re-working and releasing two albums in 1999, instead of a double album. The two albums that were officially released, I Am… and Nastradamus, failed to live up to Nas’ usual standard and the latter album being viewed as his worst album in his whole career.

However, 50 Cent isn’t a victim of an album re-work, as he still put out a really good sophomore album. The second half of the album is arguably the best half, as the the first half consists of the album’s most shakiest parts. However, that’s not to say that there aren’t great tracks on the first half. “Ski Mask Way” and “A Baltimore Love Thing” are some of the album’s best songs, with latter being one of 50’s best tracks in his entire career. “A Baltimore Love Thing” is a song centred around the addiction of heroin and rapping from the perspective of the drug. The song make come across as a toxic relationship between two people, but when you sit with the lyrics 50 raps from the perspective of heroin doing anything possible to keep its clutches on the user. It is a fantastic record that really showcases how well 50 is as. a song writer.

You’ll find a couple of the album’s singles on the first half, one of them being the album’s biggest single, “Candy Shop”, featuring the singer Olivia a former G-Unit label member. “Candy Shop” is one of 50’s biggest singles, perhaps second to “In da Club”, as it went number one in the US for nine weeks straight. I can imagine a lot of hardcore Hip-Hop fans will roll their eyes at this song, but there is no denying that when you think of classic hit singles of the 2000s, “Candy Shop” is right up there. It’s incredibly recognisable with the production from Scott Storch, who produced other hit records during that decade from the likes of Lean Back for Fat Joe and Baby Boy for Beyonce. The chorus is incredibly catchy, and it’s another example of how 50 Cent is a hook master.

The other single from the first half of The Massacre is “Outta Control”. The album consists of the original version, where as the remix with Mobb Deep is the more recognisable one and the much version. Both versions are produced by Dr. Dre and Mike Elizondo, but the instrumental on the remix is much more inferior and so infectious. It’s difficult to enjoy the original album version of “Outta Control”, because it’s so different, from the instrumental, the delivery of the hook and the presence of Mobb Deep is definitely felt.

There is one other song from the first half that did also chart, but actually wasn’t a single, was “Piggy Bank”. The three and half minute diss track aimed mainly at Ja Rule, Fat Joe and Jadakiss with hard words at others such as Nas, Shyne and Lil Kim. On Get Rich or Die Tryin’ you had “Back Down”, which is a great diss record aimed at Ja Rule, and as a song it’s an enjoyable listen, but “Piggy Bank” isn’t. The bars aren’t as humorous and though I just called 50 a hook master, the chorus of “Piggy Bank” is quite irritating and awkward to listen to.

The couple of singles on the second half of the album include another two chart topping singles, “Disco Inferno” and “Just a Lil Bit”. Out of all the singles from the album (if you ignore the remix version of “Outta Control”), “Disco Inferno” is arguably the most revered and well liked out of all of them twenty years on. With that being said though, “Just a Lil Bit” is my personal favourite single from The Massacre and much of that is to do with it’s instrumental. The production is again from Scott Storch, and it’s one of his best beats, with the incorporation of the string melodies and percussion.

The second half of the album has quite the fair share of great album cuts. “Ryder Music” is sonically a joy to hear, it’s one of the my personal favourites to put on and listen to, whilst driving. Produced by Hi-Tek, well known in the Hip-Hop world for his work with Talib Kweli, as Reflection Eternal. The song beautifully samples “Love’s in the Need of Love” by Stevie Wonder, and it fits perfectly with 50’s voice and he flows effortlessly over the beat. Then you have tracks like “Gunz Come Out” and “I Don’t Need Em”, which are completely opposite and tap in to 50’s aggressive side. Towards the end of the album, you also have “God Gave Me Style,” another melodic gem. The album then closes with a G-Unit remix of “Hate It or Love It.” While the remix may not be as revered as the original, which is now considered a classic hip-hop single, it still features some strong performances, especially from Young Buck.

There you have it, 2005’s The Massacre. As mentioned, it’s not on the same level as 50’s debut, however on its own, it’s a very good, borderline great project. I think there are two main reasons as to why the reaction towards the album was so lukewarm.

Firstly, I believe there are certain artists that struggle and can never move away from the shadow of their debut albums. Some of these artists’ debut albums can era defining, so loved and fondly remembered that anything they put out afterwards it will always be met with, “it’s not like their first”. Artists that come to my mind who have suffered from this fate include Nas with Illmatic and Raekwon, with Only Built 4 Cuban Linx. I think 50 may have suffered from this with Get Rich or Die Tryin’. The buzz around 50 prior and during the run of the first album was huge, there was a sense of rawness and mystique due to stories that were circulating around him. Perhaps by the time of the second album and after the success that came in that particular buzz may have quickly cooled off and Get Rich or Die Tryin’ was a lighting in a bottle moment.

I have seen the notion that The Massacre is less cohesive, bloated and too focused on aiming for commercial success. All fair criticisms, I do agree it is a little bloated with 22 songs, which in turn makes it less cohesive, however not to the extent where it’s horrendously bad. Is The Massacre too polished and more focused on commercial success? Perhaps, but not by that much. That criticism is quite confusing, because the first album had “In da Club” and “21 Questions”, which are clearly geared towards a Pop friendlier sound.

With all that being said, The Massacre is still a slept on project, even if some fans have slowly warmed up to it and others have come out to defend it. Had 50 kept those records that he allegedly gave to The Game, then The Massacre would have been even greater. He was very much still on a strong run musically during this time and the actual decline would start with his follow up album, Curtis, and his loss to Kanye West. If you haven’t, I encourage you to give this album another go. There are some truly great gems on this project. Get Rich or Die Tryin’ doesn’t have all of 50’s best work, you can definitely find some on The Massacre.

If you enjoyed this blog, then I take a look at my other content related to 50 Cent, including a report card and a full review of Get Rich or Die Tryin’.