A Thug’s Humanity?
By Mark Anthony Neal

At this point—as if there was ever a previous point—any discussion about the artistic merit of Curtis Jackson’s “music” is little more than a banal exercise in corporate music journalism. Mr. Jackson has never been interested in art, no matter how we might shift the signifiers to fit into the expectations of a music industry that seems to have little use for actual music. Yet Mr. Jackson’s literal body and its cartoonish doppelganger, 50 Cent, continue to stimulate curiosity, if only because of his deft performance of late stage American masculinity.

Considered purely within the context of a constructed masculinity, 50 Cent might rank as one of the most compelling examples of black masculinity since Jack Johnson. Signature generational figures like Malcolm X (El Hajj Malik El Shabazz) or Tupac Shakur, challenged notions of black masculinity in their respective historical eras, in part, because they complicated how black masculinity functioned in distinct political, cultural, social, religious and sexual spheres. In the case of Jack Johnson it was the blunt force of his masculinity and the anxieties produced in response to fears of how that force might be employed beyond the boxing ring, that made him the projection of so many racialized and gendered fantasies. In the case of Mr. Jackson such fears are purely the product of the capitalist wet dream that literally feeds upon—consumption as literal practice—the “body” 50 Cent willingly provides.

If Forbes Magazine can credibly describe Mr. Jackson as a “masterful brand builder”, what exactly is his brand? I would argue that it is literally his body—a body offered up for whatever sexual confection we can concoct as easily as it becomes the “bootstrap” muse for a generation of vitamin water addicted professionals. Two decades ago popular comedians like Chevy Chase and Eddie Murphy were described as “Reagan’s Jesters”; In 2007 Mr. Jackson is clearly Bush’s “nigga”—the literal embodiment of three centuries of American hegemony in the capitalist and militarist realms—allowing us to dually pleasure and replenish our fears—with the ease of an I-Tune transaction—in a moment of distinct uncertainties about national security and an eroding infrastructure.

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