G Unit

Beg For Mercy

(Interscope)

50 Cent hit it big this year with Get Rich or Die Trying. So, like Nelly’s and Eminem’s before him, it makes sense that his posse would want to cash in on his multi-platinum success. The result is Beg For Mercy by G Unit, which includes Lloyd Banks, Young Buck, Tony Yayo, and their overlord, 50 Cent himself.

Together their words conjure up an thoroughly dismal atmosphere that can only be characterized as quasi-goth, painting grim childhoods and grim lives set to the same menacing beats and handclaps that characterized most of Get Rich or Die Trying. A cloud of desolation hangs above the entire album, feebly lifted by “Smile” and “Wanna Get to Know You,” lighter tracks that feel like they’re trying too hard to sound lighter. Ominous piano chords and synthetic harpsichord melodies, backed by gunshots, don’t do much to alleviate this pall of gloom either.

When G Unit’s not living up to their urban bandit persona, they’re patting themselves on the back with shoutouts that become sickeningly congratulatory. Yes, the crew does get a little stale after a while, though Tony Yayo, who is currently incarcerated, provides the latest viciously clever installment in the 50 Cent-vs.-Ja Rule rivalry with the last track, which is a direct insult to the other rapper.

The bulk of Beg For Mercy itself is nothing new: guided by 50’s now famous (and largely unintelligible) mumble, G Unit sample the usual spectrum of hot topics: guns, revenge, pimps, bitches in tight clothing, bling. “Ima keep livin’ my life/ with a pistol in my palm and a wrist full of ice,” 50 drawls in “Eye For Eye.” Judging from Beg For Mercy, this won’t be changing anytime soon.

—Tiffany I. Hsieh

Missy Elliott

This Is Not A Test

(Elektra)

“Run for cover, motherfuckers.” Thus does Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott introduce her latest album, This Is Not A Test. The album is packed predictably full of boasts about outclassing every other hip-hop artist, but less predictably there may be something to the boasts. For their fifth album together, Missy Elliott and Timbaland have stripped their sound down to what might be called its bare bones, if it didn’t sound so funky and rich. The four best tracks on the album reduce hip-hop to its bare necessities: head-bouncing beats and cocky rhymes. The music is best described by its absences and by what it isn’t. Missy gave up a while ago on making sense in her rhymes, in which she makes liberal use of nonsense, free association, repetition and references to Prince. A conscious rapper she ain’t. There are almost no melody samples, leaving Timbaland’s powerhouse beats exposed and front and centre, where they belong. “Pass That Dutch” (aka “The Hoo-Dee-Hoo Song”) is so tautly constructed Missy thoughtfully allows five seconds of breathing space in the middle.

It is too much to ask that Missy and Tim maintain their innovation over the entire album, which begins to show its flab on the fourth and fifth tracks, “Keep It Movin’” (with Elephant Man) and “Is This Our Last Time” (with Fabolous). If Missy is able to assemble a more impressive selection of guest artists than anyone else, it is because she outclasses most other hip-hoppers so comprehensively. Elephant ends mostly relying on the happy consonance between his name and Elliott’s, while Fabolous mumbles sullenly about Mike Tyson. Missy’s ballads are almost always her weakest points, so these are not huge losses, and Jay-Z’s guest spot on “Wake Up” is discharged with the appropriate skill and brevity. Missy is still possibly the most exciting mainstream hip-hop artist around, even if she can’t quite sustain it over an entire album.

—Andrew R. Iliff

Pearl Jam