News 50 Cent's "Black Magic" In The Vault

Its been a while since weve heard from 50 Cent. But the brand-building actor slash business power is second in the studio, sounding out new beats and mulling the next of music. Behind the faade of beaches and boutiques, the celebrity hotspots and million-dollar lofts, Santa Monica, California, has a secret history of warfare. During World War II, this metropolis by the Pacific was internal to the American aeronautics industry and played an integral part in keeping the US war machine running.

Here, engineers and designers drew up the plans for fighter planes, while welders and construction crews made them into reality. Sixty years later, the airplane hangers and warehouse buildings no longer bustle with the action of warplane builders. The creative industry has now taken over these expansive complexes, turning them into film and music studios, perhaps in the trust that they can carry the creation and work ethic that once teemed under these thick wood rafters and curved roofs. Somewhere within a vast warehouse dating back to 1959, the inimitable rapper, actor, and entrepreneur Curtis James Jackson III, aka 50 Cent, is in the studio debuting beats that will be the bony structure of his future album. Two dark black Cadillac Escalades wait like club bouncers outside the doorway of the Red Bull Recording Studio, and inside, the deep is quaking. Jackson and his team sit in the check room, behind a state-of-the-art mixing desk, compressors, speakers and all manner of cables. A stony-faced man in jeans and suit jacket sits on the couch, while Jackson is pleading the cause for his beats. It has been a class of relative radio silence for Jackson and almost a twelvemonth since his much delayed last album, Before I Self Destruct, hit the streets last November. Other than a smattering of remixes and cameos, the rapper has largely stayed off the media radar. While other rappers have been dropping pretentious art films (Kanye), scripting prison communiques (Lil Wayne), or waxing literary on book tours (Jay-Z), Jackson has been developing his movie career and perfecting his voice to come. 50 Cent consigned his Black Magic to the vault as he says he alone made it recreationally. He is presently in the studio working on the follow up to his 2009 album Before I Self Destruct, but while he originally announced this would be a stone and dance music influenced record called Black Magic, he has since started on a different concept. He told Redbulletin magazine: I moved Black Magic, because its a total artists album. It was something that I only wanted to do, so I went in and recreationally made a full-bodied piece of work. I gave myself a new concept, so now its in the vault. Some aspects of the album may, however, appear on the Child By Me hitmakers next disc, as he added: But you can make another album out of that cloth that you put to the side. 50 also said the way he approaches making music has changed dramatically since he first rose to fame in 2002, because he is now aiming for his worldwide audience, rather than his old neighborhood of Queens in New York. He added: Its not a long drawn-out work for me to make it, but its a long drawn-out process deciding what to provide the world. When I was making music initially, it was good for a 10 block radius, now its for the world.