Before I Self Destruct didn’t see the light of day until November 2009—after 50 spent much time complaining that he wasn’t a priority at Interscope—and debuted at No. 5 on the charts, a seemingly unfathomable occurrence for the man that once ruled rap.
But his decline goes deeper than his chart performance on the charts. After September 11, 2007, he just seemed to lose all of his mojo. The man once responsible for ending careers engaged in a battle with Rick Ross—who had just been exposed as being a former parole officer—and somehow lost. The idea of 50 Cent battling Rick Ross, whose fake gangster persona is a veritable alley-oop pass to anyone looking for a good insult, and ending up in the worse position just showed how far he had fallen. Instead of the systematic destruction he laid on Ja Rule, 50 donned a jheri-curl wig and took Rick Ross’ baby momma shopping before releasing a sex tape starring her. The approach did little to endear anyone to his side of the battle.
As the years went by, 50’s attempts to get attention were more bizarre and ineffective. Just take a look at how the Voice has covered him: “50 Cent is done with the album-releasing game,” “The Day 50 Cent Threatened Gawker.com, Michelle Obama, and His Own Grandmother on Twitter,” and “Here is a video of 50 Cent singing Kumbaya.” That’s not even mentioning his weird relationship with Chelsea Handler, a twitter feud with a poodle and his throwing his own G-Unit buddies under the bus.
***
Related at PJ Lifestyle:
Join the conversation as a VIP Member