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An exhausting, by-the-numbers exercise in gangster posturing.

Not that I want to speculate on the alleged drama between Young Buck and 50 Cent, or whether or not he’s still an official member of G-Unit, but I just find it odd that he’s “featured” on a handful of tracks on their new album, as if he were a guest artist. Also consider the album cover art, which features the core members (50, Lloyd Banks, and Tony Yayo) in the foreground, and a hooded figure in the background with his back turned. Maybe there’s something to it, but whatever. The bigger issue is just how awful this new album, T.O.S. (Terminate On Sight), is.

Opening with their own version of NWA’s “Straight Outta Compton”, called “Straight Outta Southside”, the members of G-Unit do little more than scream at the microphone trying to one-up each other at sounding “hard”. They all fail miserably in this task, especially 50. Part of this has to do with the fact that he has one of the most effeminate voices I’ve ever heard from a “gangsta rapper”. Oh yeah, and when his verse starts, he announces himself as “Boo Boo”!!! You’re not doing much to ingratiate yourself with the thug community when you take on the moniker of a cartoon sidekick that most people would joke about being a homosexual (or was that Huckleberry Hound, I can’t remember). Meanwhile, “Piano Man” is lethargic and unimaginative with 50 declaring in the hook “I push keys, call me the piano man”, over a beat that sounds like a Dr. Dre knock-off. It’s one of the many exercises in thuggery for the sake of thuggery to be found on T.O.S., but none of the rappers on the track seem to find any real rhythm lyrically. Some of it is just embarrassing to listen to, as is the case with Lloyd Banks, who refers to himself as a magician near the end of his verse, able to make a corona bottle disappear into a model. This is exactly how he phrases it. It’s not even the cringe-inducing imagery, so much as it’s the laziness in getting the point across. There’s nothing clever about his wordplay that sparks listeners’ imagination. Moving right along, tracks like “Rider pt.2” and “You So Tough”, feature 50 practically singing the hooks, often sounding like someone has a tight grip on his testicles. It’s hard to take any of the bullet-riddled bravado that permeates the album seriously as a result. Mind you, neither of these are as bad as a female’s obnoxious chanting of “Ow, I need cash for my kitty kat” on “Kitty Kat”.

Ultimately, listening to Terminate On Sight is a chore on multiple levels. Even if one can look past all the drama that’s certainly tainted 50’s latest musical efforts, there’s still a wealth of inadequacies to deal with. When the production isn’t aping Dr. Dre, it’s frustratingly displaying potential that’s never achieved. Furthermore, 50 and the gang just can’t get their acts together lyrically. Even on an album called Terminate On Sight, the seemingly endless rapping about shooting and killing their enemies suffers from a severe lack of wit and subtlety.

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