Music Review: @50Cent – Animal Ambition

Around 2003, you could not tell 50 Cent anything. He was fresh off of selling millions of copies of Get Rich Or Die Tryin’. G-Unit was making its rounds with other albums and artists. G-Unit clothing and sneakers were even en vogue. Oh, and don’t forget that Ja Rule was practically blacklisted in hip hop. That one year (2003) was a year of crafting 50 Cent’s legacy.

If you would have told me that, 11 years later, Curtis Jackson would be a musical shell of himself, I would have thought you were lying. His fall from grace was everything but meteoric. One issue was his concentration on getting into petty squabbles (especially internally). Then, there is the fact that his music never was as good as that one album. Mix in his preoccupation with riches outside of hip hop and you can see he went from “get rich or die tryin’” to “got rich and stop tryin’”.

Still, he wants to look like he has that “hunger”. He wants people to believe that he is still “ready to go to war” for his. So, 50 Cent has been working diligently (or so it seems) on his album to show that he is overly ambitious. The name of this album? Animal Ambition, of course!

After a few listens to this album, I must say that it may be one of his most mediocre albums to date.

One of the biggest problems with his music is that it has become way too formulaic. “Smoke” is his reach back into the pot where “In Da Club” reigned supreme over a decade ago. “Winner’s Circle” uses the anthem-style sung chorus to work to evoke emotions and grab heart strings. “Don’t Worry About It” features 50 flowing over southern influenced rhythms. With all that diversity, the songs do not pack a punch because it comes off generic.

This isn’t to say that the album doesn’t have any worthwhile songs. “Flip On You” works because it features Schoolboy Q over an infectiously energetic beat and his flow is fluidly aggressive. “Hold On”, which starts off the album and gives false hope, has that soul sampled grit to give it flavor. These are great examples of what the album could have been. So, there are some songs worth listening to.

Still, with an emcee of 50 Cent’s caliber, listeners would hope that he would have made a better presentation. With the entire buzz and media circus following him, the composition should have been a bit better. However, what we have is tired approaches that are not interesting or were done a lot better on his previous albums. As a whole, Animal Ambition was presented to be the “lion in the jungle” of album releases. In the end, however, we get to see a pussy cat of an album entangled in its own yarn of past achievements.