10 Years Ago.....

The was a time long ago, when like 20 million other people, I was a “rapper”, or at least tried my hand at it. By my pretty subjective objective opinion, I was pretty okay at it, but being the introvert that I am, amongst other things really didn’t help out my cause. (I think that only worked out for DOOM)

One of those “other” causes happened to be dissention/disagreement between members in the group I was apart of. While far from guilt free (I was the king of “I understand what you're saying but this is why you're wrong), some of the conflicts we engaged in really made this lover of democracy start to really question my negative view of the whole authoritarian rule thing.

A debate, nah.. a argument from those times that still resonates with me was one members refusal to “Rap over anybody else's beat.” Prior to taking such an ardent stance we had done fairly well building a catalog of songs either spawned from samples or flat out remakes (Damn redoing “Icewater” was fun) but out of the blue one guy viewed such a practice as sacrilege.

“I want to use my own beats, and stand out that way” was the view that was shot at me. Which REALLY pissed me off at the time, because all I could think about was how dope we would sound over the recently released “Made You Look”. To me It was like dude copped a version of Fruity Loops and lost his f*****g mind.

What? You want to know the point of me bringing you along on this trip in the wayback
machine? Okay.

I share that glimpse of my  past because it recently came to mind again after I saw this
XXL article commemorating the 10 year anniversary of 50 Cents game changing “50 Cent is the Future”

While the title of said mixtape foreshadowed who the preeminent force in Hip Hop would be, it also acted as a stock tip derived from insider trading.

Rocking over beats already made familiar by other artist was the move.

While he definitely wasn’t the first MC appropriate the beats of others for his own gain, (Cube “Jacking for Beats” Tony Touch's “50 MC’s” among many others come to mind) he definitely was the first to radically alter the mixtape format from one that enlisted a litany of MC occupying a tape hosted by a particular DJ, to one of a particular artist or group taking the main stage on a mixtape often giving you a album worth (of often album worthy) material in the process

While DatPiff’s servers are full of Wack MC’s who have desecrated some to the best instrumentals in the  known Hip Hop world, Mr. Jackson’s opus gave legitimacy and normalized a practice that would spawn some the best music created over the past decade

There arguably wouldn't have a “Trap or Die” or any other Gangsta Grill  blessings from Mr.Thanksgiving (a.k.a Barack Odrama b.k.a DJ Drama) without 50’s landmark mixtape.  We also probably wouldn’t have been privy to Crooked I’s amazing (and far too imitated) Hip Hop Weekly series, amongst a litany of other great tracks.

I highly suggest checking out the XXL article on the making of it. Its a fun trip down memory lane to a time where Lloyd Banks didn’t sound like he had his larnax crushed by an olympic weightlifter, it was cool to get shot(???) and Curtis Jackson was the best distraction to keep you from dwelling on how horrible Bush II was.

Artists Speak On Their Songs Remade for 50 Cent Is The Future