There was a time, not so long ago, when a 50 Cent TV show would be an instant smash. Unfortunately for 50 and MTV, that time was 2003. Since then the bullet-scarred rapper has gone from red-hot to medium-warm to lukewarm. 50's film career is a non-starter: Get Rich or Die Tryin' flopped so badly it became a punchline on The Sopranos, Home of the Brave was barely released and his performance in Righteous Kill was so wooden he infected co-stars Al Pacino and Robert De Niro with Dutch Elm Disease.
Things haven't gone much better on the musical front. He lost his much-ballyhooed first week sales contest to Kanye West, his G-Unit Records has put out one flop after another and the last G-Unit posse album barely sold 100,000 copies in its first week. Where hip hop was once riveted by 50's beefs and rivalries, his latest feuds inspired little more than bored yawns.
Reality shows are truly the last refuge of the scoundrel. So it's not a big surprise that 50 has lent his fading celebrity and rapidly evaporating street cred to a reality-show competition that follows shamelessly in the hacky footsteps of The Apprentice, Ultimate Hustler and I Want to Work For Diddy. The difference? There is no fucking difference. This is yesterday's news from last weeks' mega-star.
The premise should feel familiar to anyone who has flipped on a television set in the past five years. 50 and much-maligned flunky Tony Yayo pit two teams of shameless, attention-starved exhibitionists against each other for the chance to win a 100,000 dollar "investment" straight from 50 Cent. Wow, a whole hundred thousand dollars. That unimaginable windfall should be enough to finance a hot dog cart in Manhattan for three whole months. You truly are a great humanitarian, Mr. Cent.
The show begins by teasingly referencing the fact that 50's most successful collaborators all hate him now. "You know the game. Young bucks tend to turn on you." 50 quips early on, a not-at-all hackneyed or awkward reference to his tiffs with The Game and Young Buck. Later he asks sidekick Yayo who he should "Terminate on Sight", which just so happens to be the title of G-Unit's terrible last album. It could be worse. He could ask Yayo, "Should I ask these P.I.M.Ps 21 Questions about who should end up in da club, collecting 100,000 for their piggy banks so they can go to the candy shop?
The contestants are the usual collection of skanks and hustlers, including the following reality-show friendly exhibitionists:
*A woman who teasingly brags, "To work my way to the top I'll do anything: 3 of my past five exes have been managers of my mine. You've just got to know how to play the game" This is a diplomatic way of saying "Yes, I will suck cock for better hours and a dollar fifty raise."