50 Cent - Get Rich or Die Tryin'

One of the most hyped hip-hop debuts ever, and what were we to expect? The second coming of Snoop Dogg? In a sense, the comparison is apt. The Dr. Dre brand of gangsta rap can sometimes be steeped in talking lots and saying not much. On this album, though, 50 Cent isn't quite the test audience-neutered version we know now. He's still streamlined by the standards of gangsta rap (I mean, compared to Ice Cube... not compared to Snoop Dogg of the 00s), but he's determined. He's slightly gritty, and his lyrics alternate between clever boasts and witty jokes. He hangs with Eminem on two tracks, and while 50's rhymes aren't quite as inventive or rapid, he shows that he has enough charisma to keep him afloat. As for the beats, if Only Built 4 Cuban Lynx recalls The Godfather, consider Get Rich... to be Heat: more 'splodey, less meaty, still good. It's surprisingly varied, too, with the strings backing "In Da Club" seeming at peace with the steel drums on "P.I.M.P." It's shallow, sure, but Get Rich of Die Tryin' is the sound of 50 Cent mining gold from a shallow river.

Best of the 00s: Eminem - The Marshall Mathers LP

If this isn't a top 10 contender for the best hip-hop album of the decade, I don't know what is. At the point this album was created, Eminem had everything balanced perfectly: the beats by Dre, his flow was up to par, and he wasn't quite as over-exposed, making his shtick seem less self-involved (even if it was). The trick here is that he never draws a line between what's real and fake. After a brief intro, "Kill You" opens the album on a clearly hypothetical perspective, but the second song, "Stan," sounds so plausible and self-reflective, it seems genuine. The Marshall Mathers LP slings back and forth like this, so that by the time the domestic violence-cum-murder fantasy "Kim" rolls around, you can't say for sure if he plans to murder his wife. His flow is unstoppable: he slows it, rapping through gritted teeth on "The Way I Am," turns it into both sides of a nearly-natural-sounding conversation on "Kim" and speeds it up on parts of "The Real Slim Shady."

In the time that's passed since, Eminem's two followups have been nearly nakedly self-reflective and autobiographical, exploring the effects of fame on his life. Was he clowning when he put out his actual autobiography awhile back? Haven't his albums covered his long past, recent past and present already? All over the album, he raps about his mom, drug abuse, is wife, his kid, the price of fame, and harasses pop stars of the day. The act would get worn over the course of the decade, eventually resulting in the too-literal Encore and over-corrective steering that was Relapse, but for one album, Slim Shady, Eminem and Marshall Mathers balanced delicately to make a masterpiece.

Eminem - Relapse

The time lapsed between The Marshall Mathers LP and Relapse just seems like a lifetime, doesn't it? And yet, Eminem, who spent nearly half the decade inactive and sequestered in his home, seems to have aged little. This is both good and bad. Good: his flow and way with words are completely unassailable. Verses here and there throughout Relapse are mind-blowing. Bad: The album feels a bit hermetically sealed and dated (he makes fun of Heath Ledger and Sarah Palin a year and half a year too late, respectively). There were some giggles upon his release, "He still does skits!" Yes, but not only is it laughable that he still do skits, they are continuations of the same skits that have appeared on all of his albums (ha-ha, his manager and lawyer still don't like him). What's worse is that on songs like "My Mom," and on the skit "Steve Berman," he recognizes that this is the same ol' shit before going on to do it anyway. Add this to the bloat that is a prerequisite for a superstar blockbuster rap album, and you have a bloated album that is 4 skits and 5 songs too long with some of the best bars of the year.