G-Unit - Terminate On Sight

Rating: 6.5 out of 10

The Good: The party tracks are good stuff.
The Bad: Mostly anything containing Tony Yayo
The Ugly: A very lame "Sean Bell Tribute"

G-Unit's been in the news all year, and sadly the vast majority of their headlines had absolutely nothing to do with music. Whether it was Tony Yayo's assault case, 50 Cent's mansion being burned to the ground, or Young Buck being kicked out of the group, G-Unit has been more of a soap opera than legitimate rap crew. However, if you look a bit under the surface you'll find some of the hardest working musicians in the game. G-Unit has released three mixtapes this year, the first two being criminally underrated material. When Kanye West won the media-hyped "battle" with 50 Cent last year... it lit a fire under the ass of Curtis Jackson. Instead of crawling in a hole to lick his wounds, 50 went straight to the lab and began to churn out great songs and gave them away for free. T.O.S. or Terminate On Sight is the culmination of an eight month campaign to restore the dominance of 50's crew.

You can practically feel the hunger on the opening track Straight Outta Southside, this is pure unadulterated gutter music. It's upbeat, gritty, and it makes you screw your face up and bob your head, in fact it's very reminiscent of I'll Whip Your Head Boy off the Get Rich Or Die Tryin' soundtrack. The sad thing about this song, is that "it was billed by G-Unit as a Sean Bell Tribute Track which is absolutely ridiculous. In case you need a refresher, Sean Bell is the young black man who was shot 51 times and killed by the police the night before his wedding in New York. Out of the song's three verses, Sean Bell is mentioned only once for a total of 3 seconds when Tony Yayo says "and fuck the police who shot Sean Bell". Thats IT!!! If you wanna make a gangsta rap song about how tough you are.. thats fine, I love gangsta music, but don't use Sean Bell's name if you aren't truly committed to speaking on his behalf. There are other artists like David Banner and The Game who have made proper tributes to Sean, and it's a shame that someone who hails from the very same neighborhood (G-Unit) couldn't do the same.

Although Young Buck was kicked out of the group a few weeks ago, he still appears on four songs from T.O.S. On a side note, G-Unit will really suffer without Young Buck in the long run, he provided a great southern contrast to the New York style the other three guys bring. Buck appears on Rider Pt.2, Piano Man, No Days Off, and I Like The Way She Do It, and it's absolutely no coincidence that those are some of the best songs on the album. The previously mentioned Piano Man is a pretty good track, but theres something about Young Buck's verse that struck me as funny and also serves as a lesson for impressionable listeners in general. He starts his verse off with "I'm richer than a muthafucka ridin in a dirty ass Phantom"... and then goes on to follow the theme of the song (drug lords and their lucrative careers). Which is a stark contrast from Young Buck's reality, he recently admitted to being broke and owes several hundred thousand dollars to the IRS. For any young impressionable kids out there... gangsta music may be rooted in reality but much of it should be regarded as nothing more than a fantasy movie. Factual inaccuracies aside, the two previously mentioned songs are actually damned good if you're willing to excuse them.

Aside from the opening Southside track, the high points on the album come from upbeat party tracks. As much as G-Unit wants to push the superthug "O.G. Bobby Johnson" image, their bread and butter is happy music as far as T.O.S is concerned. I Like The Way She Do It meets all the requirements for a club banger, the beat is hot, the chorus is simple an catchy, and Tony Yayo's verse is as short as possible...what's not to love? Rider Pt. 2 was originally on their Elephant In The Sand mixtape but ended up being so popular that it was included on the new album. Fans can also thank whatever god they happen to worship that this is the only song that features the dreaded Auto-Tune/Vocoder.

50 has caused a mild stir with his heavy handed subliminal diss to T.I. (which is a little out of 50 Cent's character, historically he's always brazenly called someone out if he has a problem with them). On You So Tough 50 implies that T.I. is a federal informant due to his light sentence for buying automatic weapons this year.

"What's today's mathematics? Shit aint adding up.
How niggas get caught with 10 machine guns, only get 12 months?

Oo-weee, don't talk to me. You talk to him, you talking to them ..

I got the best lawyers that money can buy

they say at best they woulda got me 10 or maybe 9 (years).

I said, how do you explain how the homie breezed?

They said, you keep your mouth shut or you eat the cheese."

Ouch.

T.O.S. ends quite painfully with a solo track from Lloyd Banks on Ready Or Not and a duet with Tony & Banks on Money Make The World Go Round. Lloyd is a talented lyricist and occasionally surprises you with a few hot bars, but he has the charisma of a doorstop. He possesses a flat monotonous flow that almost lulls you asleep if you let it, on the other hand Yayo is all charisma and no substance. Tony Yayo fits perfectly into party tracks with his over the top one liners and ad-libs, but when he sits down for the requisite "serious song" (to show everyone how deep he is), I imagine listeners rolling their collective eyes. And just so you know that I'm not unfairly picking on Yayo.. there are copies of this album floating around the internet where Tony Yayo's verses have been completely edited out. Yes, he can be THAT bad.

G-Unit needs 50 Cent to hold things together and I'm not sure who decided it was a good idea to let the album end with a downward spiral. Ultimately T.O.S. is a forgettable album, save for 4 or 5 tracks, they're not offering us anything they haven't said or done before. It's not a bad album by any stretch of the imagination, but the hood tales are stale, and theres absolutely nothing here that provokes thought. Download the best tracks from the e-retailer of your choice and save yourself some time.