Thursday, February 27, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

CDVS

While there's still no definitive checklist to confirm the authenticity of the would-be gangster rapper, it seems like running a $5,000-a-day crack business and subsequently being shot in the face by a fellow hustler would be enough to validate any aspiring player's thugitude. If that's the case, then Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson is most certainly legit, having been shot nine times at point-blank range (including one that lodged itself in his jaw) in 2000. At the very least, it convinced Eminem, who promptly doled out $1 million large from the coffers of his Shady/Aftermath label to retain 50's flow.

Not that all this really means anything in the rap world if you can't rhyme, which 50 can--kinda. Get Rich or Die Tryin' might not be on par with the debuts of either Snoop or Nas, but it's still got some great lines: "I told you fools before, I stay with the tools/ I keep a Benz, some rims and some jewels/ I holla at a hoe till I got a bitch confused/ She got on Payless, me I got on gator shoes."

By comparison, Raffi Cavoukian--the multi-multiplatinum-selling singer-songwriter so popular with the preschool set--seems like, well, kind of a pussy (which we can sorta forgive because he's from Canada). But beneath that thoroughly dandy-fied exterior, Raffi's long been a man plagued by demons: parents who were never satisfied, a heartrending divorce from his high school sweetheart, an inability to ever conceive children of his own.

Thus, we should not be fooled by the marshmallow fluffiness of Bananaphone's title track; beneath the semi-amusing tale of a man who believes that a common, everyday banana is actually a "cellular, modular, interactive-odular" telephone lies a cry of horror from a psychological purgatory unknown to anyone but the most jaded delinquent. Neither should we fall victim to the bouncing cheer of "C-A-N-A-D-A" or the jazzed-up ode to lethargy "Slow Day." They are little more than transparent covers for a ticking time bomb that threatens to explode with each strum of his child-sized guitar.

And so I say: Gangster rap? Ha! Beware the bearded, socially conscious children's musician. He's not to be trifled with.--Newt Briggs