50 Cent Says to Put Your Hands Up

Speakin’ in Tongues” was a great beat wasted on a past-his-prime Cam’ron and never-going-to-have-a-prime Vado, because if given to another rapper, New York would have had its biggest rap song in years. Jahlil Beats delivers a similarly Eastern-style beat to 50 Cent, a display for both the dexterity of his flows and his still-intact pop sensibilities.

The Big 10 came out at the end of last year, to commemorate the 10th anniversary of 50 Cent’s 50 Cent is the Future mixtape. While it was nice PR to connect his new mixtape with his classic work, the The Big 10 never comes close to besting his early 2000s material. In the last five years, critics and rap fans have made numerous arguments about how 50 Cent has fallen off, and while this isn’t as good as his older work, some of the songs are worth more than a few replays.

“Put Your Hands Up” should be all over rap station mix shows at 11:30 PM any night of the week; the elastic beat entices people to begin dancing. 50 Cent’s history of jacking beats means that he can hop from one style to another with relative ease. Here he treats the beat the way he did Drumma Boy’s “Down on Me,” slowing and speeding up his flow multiple times, never letting up until the end of the 2:28 running time. The song hasn’t received a real radio push, but considering 50 Cent has not had a hit solo song in over three years, this track would be a great one to get behind. It proves that 50 can be just as vital today as he was back when each successive song he and G-Unit released topped the charts.

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