It looks like hip-hop is embracing the concept of the short film. Just days after Kanye West’s “We Were Once a Fairytale” — an introspective meditation about isolation — leaked, 50 Cent unleashed his own entry: the video for “Crime Wave,” the first official single off his upcoming Before I Self Destruct, on his ThisIs50 Website. But where West’s collaboration with director Spike Jonze is aimed for the art-house crowd, 50’s mini-movie is modeled on a big-budget blockbuster, complete with explosions following the opening credits.

Check out photos of Kanye West and 50 Cent’s joint RS photos shoot.

If “Crime Wave” had to receive an MPAA rating, it would definitely be an emphatic R. Within the first two minutes, expletives fly at a Pulp Fiction-esque rate and 50 graphically kills someone with a shotgun. Then the music finally starts and the MC starts rapping all about the gangsta game; ironically, the clip glorifying gun violence arrived the same day Lil Wayne pleaded guilty to firearms charges. (more…)

In the shadow of Major League Baseball’s Mitchell Report comes the Soares Report, named after Albany, NY, District Attorney David Soares, which discloses what musicians have also been juicing, for reasons probably more cosmetic than performance-enhancing. According to the report, 50 Cent is alleged to have ordered steroids or human growth hormone (HGH) from a pharmacist at the center of the investigation–to think that his last album would have only received a one star review from Rolling Stone had he not been on the gas. Mary J. Blige, who was also named in the report, is taking the Roger Clemens approach by vehemently denying the charges, saying in a statement she “has never taken any performance-enhancing illegal steroids.” No word on whether Blige will be stripped of her Grammys like track & field star Marion Jones was stripped of her Olympic medals. (more…)