Filed under: design of a decade, lists, music | Tags: 2003, 50 cent, design of a decade, lil kim
[Onward with the good songs...]
8. Lil Kim featuring 50 Cent, Magic Stick
The early ’00s was the era of the hip-hop duet. Sean Paul and Tweet. Missy and Wyclef. Nivea and Jagged Edge. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome.
But many a hip-hop duet was marred by the aggressive reinforcement of crappy gender stereotypes, particularly on female-fronted tracks where male guest rappers phoned in performances from some other studio in some other city. Tweet’s Oops (Oh My) is a great ode to self-love until Fabolous shows up and turns it into a song about facials. And Sacario’s dreary guest-rap transforms the spirit of Angie Martinez’s If I Could Go! from bouncy escapism to miserable self-delusion.
That’s part of the reason why Magic Stick is so great. By pairing growly dickhead 50 Cent with equally growly dickhead Lil Kim, there is, for once, a level playing field in the bedroom. His braggadoccio knows no limits, but neither does her braggadoccia, and the two sling verses back and forth like their bedroom fireworks might actually be fun to think about. And it’s unusual, especially in hip-hop, to hear songs about sex where both parties sound like they’re having fun with it. (For comparison, check out their later duet, Wanna Lick, which ended up on a G-Unit album.)
For producing this single, which went double-platinum, Staten Island producer Carlos “Fantom of the Beat” Evans only made $7,500. He later sued 50 and Kim for $2,000,000, claiming he was never paid the royalties he was promised, but the label responded by saying they never made any money off the song either, since they had to pay all their money to Joe Simon for the sample of his It Be’s That Way Sometimes. Evans hasn’t had a radio hit since. In the meantime, 50 and Kim had their own falling-out; a video for the song was never made, she said she thought he was too violent and they didn’t speak for a few years. I guess they’ve made up now, but at this point I don’t really care.
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