Review of 50 Cent: The New Breed

Introduction

Although I consider myself to have a broad musical taste, I`ve never been particularly keen on rap music, although my enjoyment of Eminem`s 8 Mile has seen me dabble slightly in the genre.

50 Cent features on the 8 mile soundtrack, and this DVD "The New Breed" includes the trailer from the film and the song "8 Mile Road" on the bonus audio CD.

50 Cent has plenty of first hand of the experiences he sings about, having been involved in drugs and shootings earlier in his life, in fact he was nearly killed when he was shot 9 times in 2000 - he survived by his record company promptly ditching him because of the notoriety that the incident caused.

This DVD features an eighteen minute documentary, a five minute interview, several music videos, some live material, some AOL sessions, the trailer for 8 Mile and a three-track bonus audio CD.

Video

The video is presented in 4:3 full-frame and is only average, with different sections of the disc having marked differences in image quality.

The live footage from the Detroit show is quite low resolution and a little grainy, with very noticeable jaggies on straight lines (for example the microphone stand and balcony).

The music videos are better, with much higher resolution and much stronger contrast (at times perhaps too much with the image a little dark). There is far less grain on display and the image is bold and colourful.

The AOL sessions again suffer from limited resolution and grain (which is probably caused by over-compression), but the image is colourful.

Audio

The soundtrack is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0, which is fine for the documentary and interview, but the music videos and live tracks would have sounded so much better in glorious Dolby Digital 5.1.

Starting with the documentary, it is a combination of music, interviews and footage of 50 Cent et all, which sounds good and has clear vocals, although some segments suffer from slight lip-synch problems. Likewise the dialogue on the interview is similarly crisp.

The music videos sound good, but the inherent limitations of the Dolby Digital 2.0 format leave the sound a little flat. Despite this the bass is crisp and the music and vocals are well reproduced.

The live footage sounds very flat and is a little disappointing - the sound has very limited range and sounds overly compressed.

The audio CD sound, er, like an audio CD...

Features

The extras consist of the aforementioned audio CD which features three tracks "True Loyalty", "8 Mile Road" and "In Da Hood". Also on offer are three AOL sessions of "w***sta", "In Da Club", "Round Here" and a trailer for the 8 Mile DVD.

The menus are well animated and have an appropriate gunshot theme...

Conclusion

Despite on first sight looking like a well-populated DVD release, there is actually not that much in the way of content on this DVD - a relatively small repertoire of songs are used in all sections - so there are three versions of "w***sta" and "In Da Club" and at two versions of most other tracks.

The documentary footage is quite interesting and the twenty minute running time is about right. The music videos are also ok, but I would have preferred more of them. The live footage is disappointing, primarily because of the low quality picture and over-compressed sound - neither does 50 Cent Justice at all.

Overall, this DVD will interest fans of 50 Cent, but is most definitely a missed opportunity to provide a showcase of the artist`s work. A better selection of tracks, better video quality and importantly a Dolby Digital 5.1 remix would have made it far more appealing.