This week is a titanic week for hip-hop, because it's the week when 50 Cent and Kanye West release directly-competing albums in what absolutely isn't a creaky old publicity stunt to eek up both their record sales whatsoever.
In the red corner we have Curtis by 50 Cent – by and large the same monotonously lumbering, wit-free thuggery that 50 Cent churned out on his last two albums only less good; and in the blue corner we have Graduation by Kanye West – a boundary-prodding album full of whip-smart invention only let down by its creator being a bit of a dick and the fact that it has the ugliest album art in all of history. Both Kanye West and 50 Cent are taking this so-called sales battle painfully seriously, with 50 Cent promising to quit music forever if he's outsold by Kanye West. Now, we can't help wishing that 50 Cent had promised to quit music then shave his balls and eat his pubes on TV if he lost, because Kanye West is forging ahead already.
The music industry thrives on tribal competitions that forces people to take sides, be it The Rolling Stones Vs The Beatles, Blur Vs Oasis or the tension-filled battle for the UK number one slot between James Blunt and Natalie Imbruglia from a fortnight ago that resulted in one horrifically bloody pitched battle between Blunties and Imbrugliites in the Caterham branch of Waitrose that only ended when a gang of fierce Paulo Nutini fans charged the store angrily waving croquet hammers and orthopaedic soft-handled cutlery.
And the sales competition that's catching everyone's attention at the moment is the one between lunk-headed Oprah-hater 50 Cent and egotistical non-curry ordering Kanye West, who both released new albums in America yesterday. 50 Cent and Kanye West have crossed paths in the past, most notably when Kanye West said that George Bush didn't care about black people and 50 Cent countered that George Bush cared for black people quite a lot actually. And then there are the movies – 50 Cent made his rubbish, violent-billboard advertised biopic Get Rich Or Die Tryin' while Kanye West plans to make a movie about himself, where Kanye West will possibly be represented by a Zardoz-style gun-vomiting floating stone head that people worship.
But in the last few weeks, after it was discovered that 50 Cent was releasing his new album Curtis on the same day that Kanye West was releasing his new album Graduation, tensions between the pair have been cranked up to almost unbearable levels. There was talk of a presidential-style debate between 50 Cent and Kanye West to see who is the flyest mutha or whatever. And then 50 Cent went and said that he'd quit music forever if he didn't sell more records than Kanye West.
And, as the Los Angeles Times reports, that might have been the stupidest thing that 50 Cent has ever said – we know, we're stunned too – because Kanye West is already outselling him:
"If 50 is true to his word, we won't have any more 50 Cent albums," Carl Mello, a director of buying at the East Coast music retail chain Newbury Comics said Tuesday. Mello said "Graduation" was outselling "Curtis" by 200 copies at the 27-store chain. At Amoeba Music in Hollywood, store music buyer Kristen Frederick said: "For every 50 Cent CD we sell, we sell two Kanyes." … An Amazon.com spokeswoman said the site will be tracking sales for each album via a pie chart on its music page all week. At midday Tuesday, West was outpacing 50 Cent more than 2 to 1.
Of course, both records have only been on sale for a day so there's plenty of time for 50 Cent to make a comeback. But let's just say that he doesn't – what a poisoned chalice for us all that will be. On the one hand we'll be able to revel in a blissfully 50 Cent-free world, but – at the same time – victory for Kanye West, a man who already enjoys non-ironically dressing up as Jesus, could mean that his ego will become so large that it'll start exerting more gravity than planet Earth itself. And we've got far too much to do already without having to start elliptically orbiting Kanye West's sodding head any time soon.
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rueben says
whooooooooooo whzt is dis?