Besides paying respect to those who died in the strategic events, September 11 will be a showdown between two multi-platinum-selling rappers, Kanye West and 50 Cent, go pound for pound on their third solos. Fiddy who has a gigantic ego is putting his career on the line for this competition. He told SOHH.com: “If Kanye West sells more records than 50 Cent on September 11, I’ll no longer write music. I’ll write music and work with my other artists, but I won’t put out anymore solo albums.” Will Mr. West put Mr. Curtis out of job?
Unlike his previous albums, West’s Graduation is wisely slimmed down to thirteen tracks. I wonder if his brother Jay has anything to do with it. The jump-off “Good Morning” sounds promising as he makes some cracks about education: “Scared to face the world, complacent career student / some people graduate, but still look stupid.” Unfortunately, his head is so big now and he is so impressed with himself that he could not move beyond his own fortune and fame. In his ode to Jay-Z, he rhymes: “But he got me out of my mama’s crib / Then he helped me get my mama a crib.” He seems to be following his “Big Brother” footsteps. The different is that Jay got swag and West got beat. Jay could count his money and still make his flow fascinating whereas West’s beats are banging, but his lyrics aren’t.
In contrast to West, Curtis is not stuck inside his own celebrity’s status. On “Fully Loaded Clip,” he claims: “I ain’t fresh out the hood / I am still in the hood.” To him, more money more paranoia; therefore, in the first three consecutive tracks (“My Gun,” “Man Down” and “I’ll Still Kill”) he spits rhymes filled with graphical violence. He’s more at ease when boasting about how he sold bottle of water for two bucks and Coca-Cola bought it for billions, or when throwing his fans a bone: “Without them, there’s no me so I love them / Man, they’re the reason I exist, the reason I insist.” He also lyricized himself as hustler: “While Jay and Beyonce was mwah-mwah kissin’ / I was cookin’ one thousand grams in my kitchen.” He is, no doubt, an egomaniac, but he sure lives up to his arrogance.
The buzz has been that West’s Graduation will outsell Fiddy’s Curtis, and as much as we all want to see Fiddy flops on his face, it isn’t going to happen. Fiddy already told Rolling Stone about his victory over West: “I’m King Kong. Kanye is human. Humans run when they see King Kong, because they’re scared.” Imagine what he’ll look like with the cockiness in his face telling the world: “I told you so.”