G-Unit: Heading for Self-Termination

It sure ain’t 2003 anymore.

G-Unit is the second-millennial version of N.W.A., a group so internally volatile it should be unimaginable that their very worst enemies would not be each other. To the delight of its ardent detractors, G-Unit’s stranglehold on the rap industry has considerably grown weaker over the past three years. And it is not due to their contemporaries lashing back at their bullying tactics as might be expected, but to implosion, as key members—The Game, and most recently Young Buck—acrimoniously left the fold. A crew that once numbered at least a dozen people and made some of the most successful rap records in the last half-decade has now been whittled down to three, now the underdogs especially in the aftermath of 50 Cent’s “failure” of a third album (2007’s Curtis). Unsurprisingly, you don’t hear that once-ominous catch phrase—“G-g-g-G-U-niiiiiiit!”—much these days, if at all.

And one would not have any luck finding it here in abundance, either—in the crew’s sophomore set, T.O.S. (Terminate on Sight) (Well, Tony Yayo yells it in the intro of one of the songs. But big surprise, huh—from G-Unit’s primary dependent!). Absolutely nothing has changed about these guys; and compounded with their diminished status in the game, their boasts of sex and violence ring especially hollow. They still would love to pump you with lead (the title track as well as “Casualties of War”, “You So Tough”, and “No Days Off”). And they still treat women as nothing but sperm receptacles (e.g., the tepid “I Like the Way She Do It” and the sex-for-money cut “Kitty Kat”). These are the two main topics they cover for the entire 16-cut, 59-minute album, which makes them laughably unconvincing when they feign apathy for their unabated debauchery. “I Don’t Wanna Talk About It”? Au contraire, mes frères, I believe you do!

Not that Terminate on Sight is without some killer cuts, though, as it starts out with a bang. N.W.A.’s “Straight Outta Compton” gets a G-Unit update, with splendid results. For a moment there, it would seem, by listening to “Straight Outta Southside”, that the crew is back to their menacing best. The three remaining G-Unit members—50 Cent, Tony Yayo, and Lloyd Banks—are greatly aided in their vapid yet rousing lyrics with a eerie horn-helmed Ron Browz backdrop that is interpretative of the Dr. Dre original (Why it has been championed by some as a socially-conscious song about the Sean Bell shooting is beyond me, though, as merely yelling “F**k the police!” two or three times hardly qualifies it as such, not to mention boasting of “push[ing] fishscale”). Extending that strong start is “Piano Man”, a metaphoric song about pushing weight—“keys” become “kis,” get it?—that features Tha Bizness’ strutting synth-stabbing beat. And although the premise is awfully familiar (i.e., wooing a girl with riches), “Close to Me” is still a pleasurable club-worthy joint.

After those three cuts, it begins to all go downhill. There are a few songs, like “No Days Off” and “Let It Go”, that rely a lot more on elements apart from the lyrics to make them worthwhile (The former has a resplendent beat hewn out of a French orchestral sample; and the latter gets a boost from the hook by dancehall artist Mavado and a guitar-laced beat courtesy of Don Cannon). However, there are indeed some really terrible songs in Terminate on Sight. Bad enough “I Like the Way She Do It”, features forgettable verses about watching ample female posteriors wiggle and getting punanny; Street Radio Inc. had to make it worse by giving them a beat that sounds like it was ripped out of a bad NES video game. And “Get Down” has to feature the worst beat Swizz Beatz has made in a long while: a repetitious horn-loop job that is just as stagnant as the raps about letting guns go off—in more ways than one. “He don’t know how to rock the spot like me!” boasts Fiddy. Illusion of grandeur is one heck of a drug.

Moreover, that the once-powerful 50 Cent has been reduced from a great sung-hook writer to being the millionth person to follow the vocoder-using trend in the accordion-laced “Rider, Pt. 2” is painful to listen to—almost as painful as his trite lyrics: “I approach you, boy, with the toaster, boy/Get to point blank range and fiiiya!” Indeed, there is not one hook in Terminate on Sight that is memorable in quite the same way as his earlier hits like “In da Club” or “Candy Shop.” You can forget 50 Cent returning to his hungry days in the late ‘90s and early 2000s, especially considering that he has been steadily declining since Get Rich or Die Tryin’. As for Young Buck, well, he’s here, too, even if his words now sound somewhat ironic in light of his unceremonious departure: “I'm a loyal n***a, die behind mine/Even if 50 drop me, I still wouldn’t sign!”

As the most vivacious member of G-Unit, Terminate on Sight could have done with a lot more Young Buck. In at least two of the four songs he’s relegated to—“Party Ain’t Over” and “I Like the Way She Do It”—he manages to sprinkle a little sorely needed energy into the rather boring guitar repose and contrived booty song respectively. Lloyd Banks still struggles with his lack of rhyming personality, at times adopting a heightened pitch with his growl. But for the most part, the results are similar to when N.W.A.-era Dr. Dre adopted a more aggressive lyrical delivery in the 100 Miles and Runnin’ EP: It sounds comical rather than threatening. As for Yayo, well, he’s still Yayo, the weakest link. “Who-who-who-who-who-who-who want it?” he growls in Ty Fyffe’s grainy concoction of hi-hats and quick stabs of horn and keys (“T.O.S. [Terminate on Sight]”). I certainly don’t, and no, I’m not talking about getting murked.

But hey, I’ll give those two some credit. The album does come to a nice close—an area where 50 Cent is conspicuously absent—where the despondent yet frightening keys Jake One provides for “Ready or Not” pumps some life in the contrived bars about busting guns; and the chugging bleakness of “Money Makes the World Go Round” from Ron Browz (Someone give the “Ether” man an award for best beat work in this album!) is perfect for the pair’s conflicted reflection on materialism.

But a strong close is hardly enough to redeem the album. The whole affair just feels…empty. Young Buck is, for the most part, absent. But so is Eminem. And Dr. Dre. And Hi-Tek and most of the beatsmiths that made their 2003 debut Beg for Mercy a beautifully produced album. Even their perennial enemy Fat Joe, the victim of a deluge of G-Unit disses over the past five years, only gets one feeble mention throughout the album, with others like T.I. and yes, Buck himself, receiving a cryptic line or two each. What a bore, but hey, what do you expect from a crew that now virtually discharges hollow-tip bullets?

Perhaps it is way too late for a new game plan for G-Unit. If T.O.S. (Terminate on Sight) is any indication of the future of this once-indomitable crew, it is that, in lieu of terminating anyone, they just might eventually pull the plug—on themselves.

TRACK LISTING:

1. Straight Outta Southside
2. Piano Man
3. Close to Me
4. Rider, Pt. 2
5. Casualties of War
6. You So Tough
7. No Days Off
8. T.O.S. (Terminate On Sight)
9. I Like the Way She Do It
10. Kitty Kat
11. Party Ain’t Over
12. Let It Go
13. Get Down
14. I Don’t Wanna Talk About It
15. Ready or Not
16. Money Makes the World Go Round