50 Cent speaks on the evolution of hip-hop.
Hip-hop, everybody who’s doing it has been influenced by New York. Kids all over the world are inspired to be writers by hip-hop music culture grown here in New York. My whole first record is New York. If you ask an artist like Nas or Jay Z, why do people always say the first album is the best album, and they’ll give you an answer like, “Your whole life is your first record.” Your second record is after things start to become a little successful, finances and confidence level increasing so you become more attractive.
Before I showed up, there was DMX, and the energy surrounding his material was aggressive and darker. And following DMX’s success, they started singing records. They were selling a lot of records with music that had really soft content. Content-wise, it was very similar to what happens now when you get artists like Drake, because it’s still relationship-based content, but he does it in a real witty way. So when it cycles back, it will be time to go back to something that’s hard.
