50 cent’s first week sales of his album, “Before I Self Destruct”, came in at a very disappointing 160,000 sales. These numbers are great for an independent hip hop artist but terrible for a hip hop artists of 50’s caliber. In my opinion it wasn’t his worst album, but this post is in no way shape or form an album review. Fifty gives early leakage of the project as the reason for low sales. Recent history has shown that early exposure to projects more often than not, increase album sales for artists.
What makes his dismal sales week so fascinating is the fact that during the weeks approaching the release date, 50 was EVERYWHERE. He was on every late night talk show and was interviewed by high profile web and print magazines. 50 even has his own very popular website, “This Is 50.” Added to that, was a movie to promote the album, a fragrance, and a new book. How did this happen with this much fuckin promotion and exposure? Where was the fan loyalty.
50 was under the illusion that his outside antics was more important than his music. Yeah, that shit is amusing for a minute but it’s not going to make people spend money on a mediocre album. 50 seems to be more proud of his business moves than his ability to create good music. Cool with me. It’s just that, fans don’t stand in line to buy tickets to see businessmen. And you can’t keep fooling people with the same formula.
50’s career was launched off the hottest label, with the most respected hip hop producer (Dr. Dre) and the biggest rap star at the time (Eminem), cosigning him. Shit, my grandma could have gone multi platinum with that kind of support. But he it seems as though he got stuck creatively. Instead he relied on beefs that went way to far to keep him relevant. Even though he was loosing ground, the corporations seemed to still falsely believe in his ability to draw people. He was still offered movie roles and other corporate deals.
50 has no real connection to whatever fanbase that exists for him and therefore, he seems unable to cultivate and relate to them. I mean really, in these times I don’t want to hear my my favorite artist tell me how many “niggas” he’ll kill and how much more money he has than me on almost every fuckin track. Here’s hoping that this highly visible loss inspires not only Fif, but other artists to create better hip hop music.
