Hip-hop star 50 Cent began his concert Thursday at the Midland theater by posing as if he were pointing a handgun at the audience.
Regularly punctuated with the sound of firearms, 50 Cent’s performance was a disappointingly careless sonic attack.
Simulated gunfire is common at rap concerts, but it conveys special resonance for 50 Cent. Before he became one of hip-hop’s most notable success stories, he was once purportedly shot nine times.
He masterfully parlayed the corresponding street credibility into his breakthrough album, “Get Rich or Die Tryin’.”
Partly because music fans embraced the concept of a lovable thug, the 2003 release became one of the best-selling albums of the last decade. Although the quality of his recorded work remains high, 50 Cent’s popularity has begun to wane.
Approximately 1,200 loyal fans attended his 80-minute performance. The ecstatic dancing of some indicated, as 50 Cent rapped on one of his many hits, that they loved his effort “like a fat kid loves cake.” Others recognized that the concert was dull, tedious and uninspired.
50 Cent is one of the most compelling and intriguing figures in hip-hop, yet his staggeringly unimaginative presentation reduced his excellent arsenal of hits into an anonymous jumble of shouts and thuds. With no live instrumentation and spartan accompaniment from rappers Lloyd Banks and Tony Yayo, bone-rattling bass and crushing bolts of synthetic percussion overwhelmed the DJ-based mix.
Only fragments of songs could be discerned through the sonic assault. The alarming absence of dynamics rendered the performance numbing. Hits including “Ayo Technology,” “Disco Inferno” and “Baby by Me” were stripped of their distinctive charm. The steel drums featured on “P.I.M.P.” made it the only instantly recognizable song amid the otherwise interchangeable roar.
The same issue afflicts many hip-hop performances, but audiences reasonably expect that one of the genre’s brightest stars would possess the foresight and creativity to avoid common pitfalls.
Still somewhat gaunt after losing a significant amount of weight for a recent film project, 50 Cent retains a disarming smile. Even so, his enormous charisma couldn’t salvage the evening’s problematic format. Even his monstrous hit “In da Club” was reduced to an indistinct blare. It’s no surprise. 50 Cent was shooting blanks all night.