Anger Management Tour Featuring: Eminem + D-12 + 50 Cent and G-Unit + Lil John and the East Side Boy

I walked out of the Anger Management Tour 3 show at Madison Square Garden appreciating Eminem for his, get this, maturity and professionalism — seriously. Eminem is an artist who many know solely as master of the fart joke and the celebrity smackdown (actually, on “Just Lose It” from his latest album, 2004’s Encore, he collapses both of those genres in one danceable, if adolescent, track). Eminem is a pop culture gadfly who thrives on making fun of celebrities, flaunting his popularity and lyrical prowess, and generally making a nuisance of himself. As he raps in the “The Real Slim Shady”, “I’m like a head trip to listen to/ Cause I’m only giving you things that you joke about with your friends inside your living room.” It’s not as if his set focused on more “serious” material, like the songs from 8 Mile, a film that plays like a hip-hop version of Rocky. It’s that, compared to the sophomoric antics of 50 Cent and G-Unit, Eminem looks like Bruce Springsteen. The performances of 50 Cent and G-Unit were high on bombast and ego, but lacking in substance and sincerity. For the half-hour between Lil John and the Easy Side Boyz left the stage and 50 Cent came on, every single video screen in Madison Square Garden — whether it be the giant jumbotron screen flanking the stage or the tiny TV sets in every concession stand — streamed a non-stop loop of commercials advertising 50 Cent’s new Reebok clothing line and his upcoming movie (very much in the vein of Eminem’s 8 Mile). After suffering through this inescapable blitz of commercialism, the lights where thrown and the crowd waited in anticipation of the rapper’s arrival. Yet, whether because of technical difficulty or just to heighten the drama, it was a good five minutes before 50 Cent actually graced the stage, decked out, of course, in Reebok G-Unit brand clothing. Given how much hype preceded his entrance, you expected to see a god walking the earth amongst mortals. In one sense, 50 Cent delivered, as his physique and size are indeed startling,’ they’re both more suited for football hip-hop. But once the music started, all sense of grandeur and awe was lost. Hip-hop aficionados criticize 50 Cent’s sluggish and lugubrious vocal delivery, a weakness that is accentuated in live performance. Over cacophonous beats that drown out all semblance of melody and background music, 50 Cent incomprehensibly slurs his lyrics, seemingly disconnected from what he’s singing. The rich, sensual texture’s of “Candy Shop”, for example, were completely lost, in favor of a loud, aggressive, assaulting rendition. The rest of the G-Unit clique, which includes Young Buck and Tony Yayo, would run across the stage, left to right, right to left, shouting and squirting the audience with water from Poland Spring bottles. Since 50 Cent has been so hyped, so encouraged by his impressive record sales, it seems he is content to make his concerts an ego-driven spectacle of perfunctory bravado rather than an engaging communication with an audience. Eminem, however, was the one who assumed a god-like position in front the capacity Garden crowd and he managed it without commercials or movie trailers. His sound was epic and grand, suited for the stadium, whereas 50 Cent is more suited to the underground club. While 50 Cent and his crew marauded across the stage in a mad dash of bodies and voices, Eminem took the stage alone, one solitary performer, simply spitting his rhymes to thousands of adoring fans. Opening with “Evil Deeds”, the first track from Encore, Eminem took hold of the audience from the beginning, approaching his performance with intensity and drama. Unlike 50 Cent, Eminem’s rapping is clearly discernable live, and you can hear the ebb and flow of emotions in his voice. The textures of the music are intact as well. “Mosh” retains it’s military thumping beat, while “Kill You” recreates perfectly the stop and go dynamic that made it a standout on The Marshall Mathers EP. Eminem is no saint, and I’m sure he’s just as self-centered as 50 Cent. But he understands how to make egotism grand. He knows how to create something bigger than himself and the way to project it on a large screen and make a crowd of thousands admire and envy the image. Even “Like Toy Soldiers” — the furthest Eminem has gone into the self-righteous rapper-feuding-with-other-rappers genre — manages a sweeping majesty, as he extols the audience to wave their hands in the air, raise their lighters, and sing along with the children’s chorus, sampled from Martika’s 1980s pop smash. Like Bruce Springsteen, Eminem understands that pop music can attain a level of emotional and cultural grandness, and that being its creator is enough of an ego trip in and of itself. 50 Cent simply goes for the ego trip, down and dirty. Eminem has been called the greatest MC on Earth, and after his performance at the Anger Management Tour, I can see why. 50 Cent has been called the greatest hip-hop entrepreneur on Earth which, on the number of commercials I saw, I suppose is true. But as for his credentials as a hip-hop artist, I’m not so convinced.