To think, Curtis was considered a flop, and it sold 600 some-odd thousand copies its first week out.

Yeah, part of it was that it still sold way less than the million or so copies Kanye West’s Graduation sold, thus handily defeating Fiddy in their first week sales battle, not to mention the million-plus copies Fiddy’s own The Massacre sold two years before.

Then there was the fact that sales of Curtis fell way the fuck off after that first week. It was really those next several weeks that cemented Curtis’ status as one of hip-hop’s all-time great commercial failures, even though it did eventually go platinum. (Some African kids must have saved up their Sally Struthers money.)

This new Fiddy album looks like it’s about to redefine what it means for a 50 Cent album to be unsuccessful. Never mind Curtis taking months and months on end to go platinum, Before I Self Destruct might never go platinum. Hits Daily Double predicts that it will somewhere in the neighborhood of 160,000 copies its first week out, i.e. something like a quarter of what Curtis sold. Yikes!

And who knows, it might not even do that well. Remember when that Slaughterhouse album was set to sell like 28,000 copies its first week out, and people were like, damn, that’s only 7,000 per failed MC? Then come to find out it really only sold like 18,000 copies. Budden also put out one of his albums on Amalgm Digital that week, and the Internet Soldiers may have opted for it instead.

With this new Fiddy album, I’m thinking word might get out that it’s a huge, embarrassing failure, and people might decide to cop some weed instead. Slaughterhouse could only ever get but so much press, even though there’s four of them. Meanwhile, you can hardly click on a rap blog today without witnessing Fiddy cop a plea with regard to BISD’s projected first week sales. That can’t be good for his “brand.”

Here’s Fiddy in an interview with MTV or somebody, which I found excerpted without attribution on Vlad TV:

“With the actual outcome of the project, once the record leaks from the international plant, what more can I do,” 50 explained in an interview. “I can’t, I held the record long enough to get it to them, to mix and master it and for them to ship it and then it leaks from the plant internationally, I’m like come on, then that’s it. They lost the ball. You know what I mean, if the numbers look funny to me, it’s they fault.”

Before I Self Destruct was available on the Internets a good two weeks or so before it hit stores. The TIs did what they could to silence any mention of the fact that the album sprung a leak, but that only served to piss off the few fans Fiddy has left. You couldn’t preview one song from the album on World Star, but downloading the entire thing was a mere matter of consulting the Google.

I should know. I ran a review of the album on the 4th, and that’s about as much effort as I was willing to put forth. (I don’t think I’ve ever received a review copy of an album from a major label. True story.) Lord knows it was hard enough just listening to the damn thing. As I mentioned in my review, I should receive a medal just for having the wherewithal to see that task to completion. Maybe my mom can make me one.

Fiddy probably should have done what Jay-Z did with the Blueprint 3 and pushed the release date up. If they couldn’t have gotten it in stores by that Friday, they definitely could have gotten it into stores before this Tuesday. They may have sacrificed the opportunity to score a big first week sales number, but as it turns out, they weren’t about to anyway. And they probably would have sold more copies overall, if they’d struck while the iron was hot. Crap.

The TIs must have realized this was gonna happen, right? Pushing the album release date up should be standard protocol at this point. They should list a phony release date, then drop the album a week before that, just to throw people off. That’s probably what Jay-Z did. That crafty son of a bitch.

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In celebration of the release of his first studio album in a decade, Rakim took to the stage last night (November 19) to a packed crowd at B.B. King Blues Club in New York City.

The God MC walked out to the lead single “Holy Are You” off his new disc, The Seventh Seal. Yet his entrance was soured; as it required a second take—the first in several technical issues throughout the night.

According to veteran DJ Mister Cee—the man behind the ones and twos at the show—his power had gone out due to someone onstage stepping on a wire. After the brief delay, the golden-era lyricist then went into the first classic of the night, “Eric B. Is President.” The crowd rapped along word for word, cut after cut,  almost rendering Ra’s presence unnecessary at times.

“It’s hard to do what I do in this game for this long, so I wanna thank y’all for this,” the Long Island-bred rapper said during one of the sound disruptions.

Rakim Allah then bounced from Paid In Full joints (“My Melody,” “I Ain’t No Joke”) to his seminal 90’s work (“Mahogany,” “Don’t Sweat The Technique”) and more recent selections such as his Dre-produced feature on “Addictive.”

Other standouts from the night included Ra flossing his DJ skills and hip-hop forefather DJ Kool Herc making an appearance onstage. The microphone fiend then closed out the concert with a performance of his monster hit  “Know the Ledge,” proving that despite his age, he’s still has some “juice” left. —Devin Chanda

Watch a clip of Rakim performing “My Melody” below.

[See article to view media]

Photos courtesy of Jonathan Weiner. Click image to enlarge.

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For those who are not aware, Fabolous has been implicated in the theft of a rare Lamroghini Gallardo Spyder from an Atlanta hotel. At the time of the theft last year, it was one of only two in the United States. By now I’m sure Akon has 7 of them in his ivory living room. But, that’s neither here nor there. Apparently, some valet just surrendered the keys to this magnificent penile extension to some of Fab’s entourage. Long story short, there’s been a struggle to recover the vehicle and Fabolous is adhering to the G-code by not talking. Y’all saw that video where he had the girls on National Geographic status working his unspecified drug package. The man is Nino fucking Brown, clearly.

The fact that John Jackson is both Fabolous’ name and that of the victim’s attorney is kind of awesome. It makes me think of these mental cases who shoot up a public area and represent themselves in court. Colin Ferguson would shit himself if he’d known he could represent himself and the plaintiff! I know Fabolous isn’t doing that. Though, I’m sure he could dazzle any jury with a multi-syllabic rhyme scheme defense over a jazzy, lovesick instrumental.

Thanks to Fabolous and the assclowns he calls employees, the Intercontinental in Buckhead “is taking several measures, including heightening security.” Here comes the bullshit. We know what this means. Not to make this a race issue, but “heightening security” makes me think negroes are going to have to show three forms of identification—driver’s license, freed slave papers and asshole—to get their fancy jig cars back. It’s not like Fabolous and his platoon of Desert Storm Troopers pulled off some tactical mission to lift a rare Lambo from a well-guarded vehicle stronghold. The valet handed the keys to limited-edition eye-talian sportscar to some porch monkeys he probably thought were in the NBA or some shit.

What kind of security measures does a hotel need in order to prevent this sort of thing? They need to fire Jerry Lewis and hire competent valets, not call in the Army Reserves and put the Intercontinental on brown alert. Besides, someone’s gonna get fucked the fuck up when Josh Smith of the Atlanta Hawks has a hard time getting his prized sterntmobile after a hard night of slamming down postgame groupies. Don’t let Fabolous’ silly up-top negro minions be the reason you lose all that wealthy black business Atlanta prides itself on. The National Association for the Embarrassment of Colored Folk will be all over it. Once Tyler Perry tells Madea’s many children to boycott your venue, it’s over.

Has anyone given thought to the notion that the valet was in on the jux? I saw a special on the telly-vision once where they put hidden cameras in some of these valeted cars. Valets do grimy shit! These guys caught on camera searched every crack and crevice of their assigned cars looking for money, jewelry, credit cards and stray Chee-tos. That’s why I never use valet. Granted, the only time I’m ever somewhere with a valet is when the XXL check comes a little early and I sternt hard at the occasional seafood house. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a valet’s face when a nigga drives right past him into an open parking spot, locks up, hands him a crispy Washington and George Jefferson walks into the crab house.

Where Fabolous went wrong was when he failed to roll up a newspaper and beat the Dax wave pomade off of his weed carriers when they showed up in a stolen Lambo. Instead, he probably offers the niggas a place to park the shit for a year. Fabolous can’t claim ignorance here. He knows damn well niggas paid in kush shake can’t so much as rent the floormats of a vehicle like that.

I love how the rightful owner and authorities are still looking for the sportscar. Consider that shit a missing girl. It’s already been broken in and re-sold into slavery, if you’re lucky. However, it would be awesome if the polices obtain a search warrant, open up Fabolous’ garage door and find a shivering, abused Gallardo with one hell of a story to tell.

If cars could talk, that shit would probably say “I’ve been filled to capacity with chicken bones and blunt guts over the course of this past year. Please get me to the care of a respectable owner… Puerto Ricans are lazy, Michael.”

Air-tight G-code procedure aside—because even Nino dropped dime to save his own ass—I don’t think Fabolous can cooperate with them folk without giving himself up. I guess there’s an immunity package on the table for him, provided his testimony is good money. But, I’m willing to bet the weed carriers can produce photo or video evidence of Fabolous taking a ride in the Lambo to shop until he drops. Somebody could create a Twitter account full of ass-in-Lambo seat twitpics that burn Fabolous right back.

Aspiring rapsters, take note. Discipline your weed carriers. Onlookers, take note. A rapster’s weed carriers will only be as morally sound as the rapster dictates. That’s to say Fabolous didn’t raise these niggas right and probably delighted in the forbidden fruit himself. Seriously, people. I’m sure Akon has one or two of those lying around that he’s already tired of and willing to part with at a sub-market rate. He’ll probably throw in a functional Chevron pump.

Damn. This is not how Fabolous wants to be added to the 2009 Rapster Rapture. I say throw him in the bag for ignorance alone.

Questions? Comments? Requests? Can’t you see this entire scenario playing out animated in some commercial? ron@ronmexicocity.com

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Fans waiting for Lil Wayne’s long-delayed Rebirth album will have to sit tight for one more week.

XXLMag.com has confirmed with Universal that the album will be hitting stores on Monday, December 21, just one week after they set a December 15 release. Prior to reports, an inside source at the label told XXL that Weezy’s follow up to The Carter 3 will not be packaged with the forthcoming Young Money compilation, We Are Young Money.

Consisting of Wayne, Drake, Nicki Minaj, Mack Maine, Gudda Gudda, Tyga, Jae Millz, Shanell, Lil Chuckee, and Lil Twist, the crew will be joined by Gucci Mane, Lloyd, Pleasure P and Baby on their debut. Rebirth, on the other side of the spectrum, will have appearances from Fall Out Boy and Lenny Kravitz.

Wayne and YM will both hit the shelves as the same time as the re-release of Eminem’s Relapse album. Relapse: Refill will include seven new songs, in hopes of tiding listeners over until Relapse 2 comes in 2010. —Elan Mancini

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Years ago, I went to law school at Georgetown University, in Washington D.C. Being a Brooklyn, New York cat, I knew nothing about that city. One day I went to have lunch with a couple of friends at the famed Florida Avenue Grill. Me and my peoples were in there talking about how we thought the Redskins sucked. I guess we were a bit loud because after a few minutes, a couple of cats said something to the effect of “You New York boys will get fucked up in these parts of town.” Cool, when in Rome, all that. Plus, how stupid would it be for me to get into a scuffle with some local cats over football teams? We quickly changed the subject to politics. Mayor Marion Barry was still the mayor of that city, even after it had been proven that he was known to smoke crack every now and then. This time our waitress got mad. “Don’t you talk bad about MY mayor!” she barked. Now, not trusting the vibe, plus not wanting the cooks in the back to add any types of “special sauce” to my meal, we finished what was left of our lemonades, paid the bill and bounced. Three things I walked away from that experience with:

1.  Washington DC cats don’t play

2. They will ride or die for Marion Barry

3. If you’re from out of town, you might get fucked up for talking shit about the Redskins

I grew up with this cat named Knowledge. Knowledge was the kind of cat that loved to get in trouble. Nice with his hands and standing well over 6′2″, dude was known to knock many a cat out with his hands. I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody that loved scrapping like how Knowledge did.  Never backed down from a fight. Some years back, he went down to DC to take part in the festivities at the annual Howard Homecoming, even though he never attended Howard. He never attended college. As he was getting prepped, buying new kicks, a mean butter soft leather jacket and what not, I warned dude about how ill them DC boys get, how him with his bad ass shouldn’t mention jack about the ‘Skins. Or Marion Barry. He was like “fuck them bitch ass niggas, you know how I do, fuck around and knock a nigga out!”. You know us New York cats, always thinking how much better we are than anyone else. So dude drives down there, looking to pick up chicks, but with this typical arrogant New York attitude. Down there one night, he runs into some younger kids, thugged out smoking mad weed and blasting Tupac from out their jeep. They got into an argument about a parking space. So as Knowledge and the driver of the jeep is arguing, Tupac all blasting out the speakers, Knowledge spits out, on top of whatever his beef was in connection with the parking spot, how bitch ass them kids was for bumping ‘Pac. Knowledge by the way, was not a Tupac fan. Even though it was just him against like five smaller cats, Knowledge definitely had the size advantage. But the minute he said some shit about Tupac, one of the kids immediately jumped out the jeep, wielding a lock tied to the end of a long ass shoestring. Knowledge, towering over the kid is like “Wtf” then BAM, the kid swings the lock like a pro and the lock connects solidly to Knowledge’s temple. Dazed, and dropped, Knowledge hits the ground. The other kids get out, all wielding the bolo like shoestring/lock creations and they’re whipping on Knowledge like crazy, locks connecting to forehead, nose, knuckles and what have you. Now Knowledge is in the fetal, trying his best to survive, but its a wrap. The kids get closer and commence to stomping the shit out of him. Hearing him tell the story, he said he knew he was close to death, knew he was going to die. The last thing he remembered before he lost consciousness was how he felt mad hands digging deep in his pockets, boots still raining down on his eye, back, head, neck, nose.

When he woke up a couple of days later, in the hospital,  doctors and cops there told him how lucky he was to be alive, what with the concussion, broken nose, a couple of cracked teeth and fingers. A whole list of bodily damage. That, plus how them goons took every thing, watch, butter soft leather jacket, new kicks, wallet, crisp Yankees cap, Coogi hoodie, Evisu jeans, car, everything. Them dude stripped him down to his underwear and left him out on the street, unconscious. Me and my friends ended up Western Unioning cash to a friend of mine for Knowledge to pick up from, cause of how  he didn’t have any types of  I.D. no  more. (Western Union requires i.d. to pick up cash). Just so he could buy some clothes, nothing fancy. And also for him to cop a ticket to ride a Peter Pan bus back to New York. All of that, just because he didn’t like Tupac. And how he decided to share that info with a gang of Tupac fans.

Yesterday I remixed an old post I did on Byron Crawford’s site 5 yrs ago. About how I thought Tupac, now in 2009 might still be overrated. You might have read it.  Back when I dropped it in 2005, ‘Pac fans went nuts. Byron ended up getting over 500 comments behind it! Mostly from Tupac fans. I have to admit that it was kind of fun then, riling them up, kinda like how kids might get a kick outta stirring up a hornets nest. Yesterday I woke up in a mischievous mood, felt like pulling the same stunt here at XXL. I did, and like clockwork, Pac fans jumped out the window. Like them DC boys, you niggas is crazy. For real though, no joke, I respect that. Now this ain’t no types of apology, me taking anything back. I like some of Tupac’s work. A lot. Most of it, not so much. So yeah, we don’t have to agree on the same things, but you dudes went the eff in on me. Still.  Thirteen plus years after his murder in cold blood. The way ya’ll still ride with Tupac, ride and bang for him and his legacy, that right there is mad commendable. What I did was hella fun, for real, but really, I knew what I was doing. I knew better and fucked with ya’ll anyway. It was too easy. And it wasn’t very nice of me.

Two things I respect most about  Tupac is how charismatic he was and how he did everything with 100% passion. Passion wins all the time. Tupac fans, like the man himself, are like no other on how they keep that passion alive. It’s what hip hop is missing these days, that kind of passion. I wish half of the rappers in the game today had as much passion as y’all do, as quarter as much passion as Tupac had. I truly respect that. So yeah, I think Tupac was overrated as a rapper, but that’s just my own individual opinion. What’s more important is how Tupac continues to be severely overlooked for the incredibly talented individual that he was in other aspects of his short lived life. For him to have touched so many lives the way he did [||], for how you continue to keep riding for him, on behalf of all Tupac fans everywhere, you get a sincere and official Combat Jack salute. Salutes!

Knowledge has never been the same since that incident. He still tries to gets brawlic every now and then, but not like before. They also never found his car. He’s also got that look in his eye, like how one has when they’ve come that close to greeting death. He’ still a loudmouth. Except whenever anyone mentions Washington, D.C. Or Tupac. Then he gets quiet. Like a church mouse. Quiet and still, and with that lost look in his eyes. You Tupac fans don’t have to worry about me questioning Tupac’s legacy as a rapper no more. It’s hard enough catching heat from them cats over in the Nah Right’s comments section, they started bringing the hate in a major way. So I’m making my peace with ya’ll. I’m ready to move on if you are. Cool? Lemme know.

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