Kanye was different, until sadly his latest album, some songs feel very similar to old ones, if the similarity doesn’t lay in the beat it does so in the style of rapping.

They should start to mix and experiment more with other genres of music and produce something new.
Something a la Timberland.

First off, ayo technology is actually the 4th single released from Curtis. Straight to the Bank, Amusement Park, & I Get Money (the biggest hit so far) were all singles before ayo technology, which was leaked way before it was supposed to have been.

Regarding the comment of Kanye being more commercially viable and appealing to a wider audience, that is far from accurate.

50’s album Get Rich or Die Tryin’ sold over 12 million records worldwide (7.5 mil in the US alone) compared to Kanye’s College Dropout which only sold 4 million (2.7 million in the US)

50’s next album The Massacre sold over 9.8 million records worldwide (just over 5 million in the US) while Kanye’s Late Registration sold only 2.8 in the US.

In summary, both of Kanye’s albums combined wont even come close to any of 50’s albums that he’s released. 50 has sold 15 million more records than Kanye and if Kanye released another 3 – 4 albums, he still wouldn’t match 50 in terms of #’s.

Also, regarding the comment that Kanye is more clever and has more substance in his music (which i agree is sometimes true), people need to dig deeper and listen to 50’s whole album before they comment. His unreleased record Power of the Dollar had a song called “How to Rob” which may be on of the most clever songs you will ever hear. Also, whenever he does guest apperances on songs that never receive any airplay, he usually kills it. His 1st album is definately his best work by far and it has probably dropped a little bit, but most artists are usually like this as you said earlier.

I’m also a fan of Kanye’s work, i’m just informing most people who probably wouldn’t know of 50’s other work since most of his singles are more “commercially appealing” than his other songs that dont ever become singles which are more raw and tell the story of his life (which was obviously more hardcore and gangster like than Kanye’s, hence more referrence to drugs, shootings, etc.)

Let’s still give 50 the benefit of the doubt due to past history and record sales. However, i will definately agree that this time around, it will be much closer due to Kanye having 2 solid hit singles to promote his album while 50’s promotional campaign this time around has been much more messy and disorganized, with songs and videos being leaked out when they shouldn’t have been and each song not getting the proper promotion.

Well it’s not the first time I had a first impression that something sucked to later find I actually like it.