Say what you like about 50 Cent, but you have to admire the fact that he's one of the only men on the planet capable of making Kanye West seem like a reasonable, bang-up guy.
Because when 50 Cent decided to announce that he'd quit music forever if Kanye West's Graduation album outperformed his Curtis album in terms of first week sales, the world was basically asked to choose between an egomaniac with a fondness for grossly impractical sunglasses and a mumbling gangsta who hasn't had a single creative idea in four years. And, judging by the sales, it went with Kanye West – in the UK, Graduation outsold Curtis dramatically. Does this mean that 50 Cent will quit music forever? We're not sure. But it does mean that 50 Cent that has thrown a wobbly of epic proportions and backed out of his scheduled Mobos appearance this week.
50 Cent doesn't seem to realise that this is a great time for live awards show performances. After all, 50 Cent could bound onstage at the Mobos, poo in a jam jar, yodel the theme-tune to Animal Hospital and then shatter his pelvis on a drum riser and people would still compare him favourably to Britney Spears. But white-hot logic like that won't work on 50 Cent at the moment – he's still knotted up that his painfully short-sighted album sales beef with Kanye West has backfired and made him look like a great big git.
As if you needed telling, when Kanye West moved the release date of his Graduation album to the same date as 50 Cent's Curtis album, all kinds of nonsense kicked off. First there was going to be some sort of 50 Cent/ Kanye West debate to figure out who was the dopest mutha – or something – and then 50 Cent went and promised that he'd quit music if Kanye West beat him; an act roughly akin to declaring "buy the Kanye West album instead of mine and I'll buy you a nice big car."
Typically, Kanye West did outsell 50 Cent, leading to the slightly uncomfortable sight of 50 Cent almost choking on his own tongue trying to clarify exactly what 'quitting music' meant. 50 Cent blamed his label Interscope for badly marketing Curtis, he tried claiming that Kanye West's label Def Jam was artificially inflating his sales figures and then, at one staggeringly bewildering point, decided that he'd release a new album every time Def Jam had a big new album coming out, just to spite them. But does this mean that 50 Cent will quit music like he said he would? That's still unclear, but it does mean that 50 Cent won't be playing the Mobos or any other European date in the foreseeable future. The Times reports:
Rapper 50 Cent has cancelled a string of UK and European performances after his high-stakes show-down with Kayne West entered a perilous new phase… The rapper was due to perform at this week’s Mobo Awards and Vodafone Live Music Awards, in London, and was to play for an MTV show in Germany on Friday, but today pulled out of all three appearances. A spokesperson for the Vodafone awards said the rapper had given no explanation for the late cancellation.
Although we won't know the official sales figures until tomorrow, it's more or less assumed that 50 Cent will have been beaten by Kanye West in America too. And then what? Will 50 Cent cancel all of his appearances there as well? Does this mean we've genuinely seen the last of 50 Cent? We hope so. We hope that 50 Cent goes back to glumly picking his scabs in his giant mansion surrounded by models and his massive share of the $4.2 billion sale of his water company to Coca-Cola. Then he'll know what failure feels like. Oh…
Read more:
50 Cent Cancels Gigs As Battle With Kanye West Heats Up – Times
Anony-fricking-mous says
Q-What did 50 cent say to his mum when she gave him a sweater and scarf for Christmas?
A-“Gee, you knit?”
I hope he quits. Would be funny as.