Beg for Mercy

G-Unit

Interscope

Immediately following…

Beg for Mercy

G-Unit

Interscope

Immediately following the demise of hair metal at the hands of the Seattle grunge movement, it would’ve been difficult to convince anyone that one day we would once again witness a mainstream music trend so bloated with boisterousness, posturing and insipid formulaic garbage as hair metal had been. Nevertheless, that day has indeed arrived, and mainstream hip-hop is our new hair metal. That being the case, G-Unit is our new Ratt.

Hip-hop follows the same spoils system that applies in politics – if you get big, your friends get to come along. Such is the case with G-Unit, an assembly of 50 Cent’s buddies, many of whom helped him through the New York underground mixtape scene to get him where he is today. Those friends are the Jamaican Lloyd Banks and the Southern Young Buck. There is also the minor presence of Tony Yayo, who is just as much a member of G-Unit as the rest of them, but does not appear on this record much, having been recently incarcerated.

For better or worse, Beg for Mercy has been anticipated by 50 Cent’s hordes of fans as the follow-up to his nine-times-platinum Get Rich or Die Trying. While this effort is not exactly 50 Cent’s actual sophomore album, his presence on the record is ample, and the style is very similar to his solo work. Also, true to typical Aftermath Records form, the ubiquitous Dr. Dre and Eminem produce and mix several of this album’s tracks – the ones that earned the half star, incidentally.

What is surprising is that there wasn’t more of Dr. Dre or Slim on this album. Not only are the tracks produced and mixed by them by far the best on the disc – particularly Dre’s “Poppin’ Them Thangs” and “G’d Up,” the latter of which is probably the strongest track on the album – but the producers and mixers of the other tracks are shockingly anonymous for such a major release. Furthermore, not only are most of the tracks that aren’t engineered by Slim or Dre not as good, they are, for the most part, markedly terrible.

The album, as a whole, comes off the way mainstream rap does all too often, lately – overproduced and under-talented. The impression that one takes away is that, not only are Lloyd and Buck not especially good rappers, neither is 50 Cent. None of the intoxicating rhythms and beats characteristic of his solo work are present here. While there are one or two tracks that sound like they could be at least flash-in-the-pan radio singles, none of them are as kinetic as the work 50 has been known for to date.

Perhaps the most disappointing thing about this album is how disgustingly mediocre it is. There is nothing – I repeat nothing – new, unique or especially enjoyable going on here. Lyrics are all, predictably, about being playas and gangstas, and, inexplicably, loving Jesus. The track “Footprints” is a particularly disgusting self-righteous mix of all three themes. They are written with all the cleverness and artistry of a third-grader. Listeners are treated to all the stupid fronting that we’re used to – Bentleys, bling, ice, cash money, the whole nine – and songs about how G-Unit will kill you, do your girlfriend, then cruise through town in a Lincoln Navigator with 24-inch chrome rims. The liner notes are laden with super-airbrushed pictures of the G-Unit crew holding guns and money and jewelry. And there are the ever-rampant “Scarface” and “Goodfellas” references. What a novel idea! Everything about this album is so, so tired.

It’s one thing to get away with all of the overdone thematic trappings of mainstream rap when you produce exceptionally good music from them. But unfortunately, G-Unit does nothing particularly well at all and brings nothing new to the table in this offering. If anything, this album is a testament to how dependent 50 is on Dre to deliver him good beats, not the kind of crap that ended up on this album, sounding like it was composed on a Playskool My First Mixer. About midway through this bloated, self-celebratory, 18-track flaming turd, you, too, will Beg for Mercy.