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50 cent – Street corner
By JP Webber, Music on Posters editor.
We’re on the street with 50 cent – what’s going on
here then? Let’s have a look at the background first. Well, he
is on a street corner, presumably in a poor neighbourhood, it’s
daytime with a nice blue sky, but there doesn't look like there's much
to be cheerful about. Not a great deal more to be learned here, so
let’s have a look at him. He’s on his own, he’s wearing
his street clothes mainly, he seems preoccupied, staring out of shot
at something, or maybe he’s just thinking.
He’s not staring at us like in so many music posters - this doesn’t look like a pose. The effect is to make him look like he’s in his natural habitat, as if you were looking at a wildlife poster. This is where he comes from, this is where he belongs, it’s his domain. This is the type of place he raps about and you have to identify with it to understand him.
The only thing for me that cuts across all of this is the cross he’s wearing. It does seem to feature in a lot of images of him and it's quite distinctive, but it comes over as a piece of music industry jewellry, making his otherwise 'man of the streets' image a little less plausible. And it looks like it might have cost more than 50 cents.
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