Last month, 50 Cent debuted his new fragrance “Power by 50 Cent” at Avenue in New York City. Videogames, movies, vitamin enriched water, clothing, it was the kind of brand extension gig I’ve come to expect from him. Unexpectedly, he has also restored my faith in hip-hop - at minimum it’s new music I can listen to in a loop. With Jay-Z’s “D.O.A.” leading the fight against the candy ass, mindless, meaningless, and downright fraudulent place hip-hop has been stuck in for a good minute, 50 Cent’s latest ‘free’ mixtapes War Angel and Forever King continue to speak on the subject.. “Goons don’t use Auto-Tune..  I can’t fit in with these n*ggas, man. N*ggas got mohawks and wearing skinny jeans, man. I think these n*ggas is..” You know the rest.

More importantly, 50 managed to bring back the energy and spirit of his early mixtapes.

50 Cent “War Angel” ← download

War Angel is the better of the two, packed with five album worthy tracks: “I Gotta Win,” “Better Come On Your A Game,”  “I Line N*ggas,” “Redrum Murder,” and “CREAM 2009.”

50 Cent “Forever King” ← download

Forever King is 50’s tried and proven successful strategy of hopping on the topic/song of the moment and spinning it his way. In this case it was Michael Jackson’s passing that gave him the opportunity to release more ‘product.’ There is a freestyle titled “Michael Jackson” where he raps over “Been Away Too Long” but with summertime R&B classics like Gina Thompson’s “Things You Do” and Horace Brown’s “One for the Money” backing up a few others, I think of Forever King as bonus tracks for those that think War Angel ends too soon.