A mass of producers offer a sound infinitely more grimy than the pop hip-hop of Ja Rule or Nelly. His slurred delivery is distinctive and original, but not quite powerful enough to stop the excitement level leaping when Eminem makes a frantic guest appearance on Patiently Waiting. Jackson has a darkly comic turn of phrase that is frequently startling: at one point he charmingly offers to "have the paramedics wrapping your fuckin' head like a Hindu". But Jackson himself doesn't seem particularly interested in objectivity: the album's stand-out track, Many Men, opens with a dramatisation of his shooting, and his rapping really catches fire during Wanksta and Life's on the Line, both hectoring attacks on Murder Inc. His recent history is so lurid that it's hard to be objective about the music on Get Rich Or Die Tryin'. Jackson now claims to carry a loaded gun and wear a bulletproof vest at all times. Last month, the reception of his management company was sprayed with bullets. Some sources have suggested that the murder of Run DMC's Jam Master Jay last October was another botched attempt on Jackson's life. Two months after he was stabbed, Jackson was shot nine times. His notoriety has spiralled into shocking violence. Frankly, if he had any more beef, he could open a chain of butcher's shops. He has beef with Benzino, a minor rapper who recently dubbed Eminem the "rap Hitler". He has beef with Ja Rule and his Murder Inc posse, some of whom claim to have stabbed Jackson in a New York studio in 2000.
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He has beef with Jay-Z and the Wu Tang Clan, who took exception to Jackson fantasising about mugging other rappers on his 1999 single How To Rob. Jackson, however, appears to have beef with the entire hip-hop scene. They warrant their own slang term: warring rappers "have beef" with each other. Petty arguments between rappers are commonplace. The album's success may have less to do with its lyrical content than with Curtis Jackson's lifestyle. It would appear that the gangsta-rap revival is suddenly upon us. Its lyrics unashamedly retread the themes of guns, murder, robbery and drugs. Released on Eminem's label, it opens with a track called What Up Gangsta. That's more than every other album in the US top 10 combined. This week, Get Rich or Die Tryin', an album by ex-crack dealer Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, sold 872,000 copies in the US. Which opprobrious youth cult will catch his eagle eye next? Teddy boys? Flappers?īut Howell's blushes may yet be spared. Like a boozy dad on a wedding reception dancefloor, he thinks he's showing the youngsters a thing or two, but he's hopelessly out of time. With that in mind, his remarks seem less reprehensible than rather quaint. Precisely what gangsta rap is Howells talking about? Leaving aside the dismal posturing of the So Solid Crew, there hasn't been a gangsta-rap hit in Britain since the mid-1990s.
But one glaring question was left unasked. In its wake, Howells was decried as everything from a white supremacist to a Simon and Garfunkel fan. None of the many attacks Kim Howells has launched during his brief period as culture minister has attracted quite as much indignation as his recent lambasting of gangsta rap.