Sirens blare as 50 Cent enters the stage encased in a smoke-filled glass field, one which’s accompanied by the sort of apocalyptic lightning strikes that you simply may count on every time villainous Suella Braverman laughs. He launches into ‘I’m On Some Shit’ and ‘What Up Gangsta’, the latter from his 2003 debut album ‘Get Wealthy or Die Tryin’’ – it’s a fittingly blockbuster opening for such a juggernaut report.

This ‘Remaining Lap’ tour coincides with that report’s twentieth anniversary – which solid Fiddy as an genuine thug deity in a local weather the place rappers had been serrating their edges for crossover success. Earlier than he focused on being an actor, producer and media mogul (his final album was launched in 2014), Fiddy – actual identify Curtis Jackson – was as soon as often called a lot for his nihilistic private life, jail sentences and infinite feuds as his music. He was dropped by his report label Columbia and his first mooted report ‘Energy of the Greenback’ was shelved when he was shot 9 instances, aged 25, in 2000. However two years later he was signed up by Eminem for ‘Get Wealthy…’ – which is now 5 instances platinum within the UK – that includes forward-thinking manufacturing by Dr Dre. For sure, he had the final giggle.

20 years later, the AO Enviornment is teeming with a family-fun intergenerational viewers, as mother and father have introduced their youngsters adorned in outsized 50 Cent merch. He delivers a 90-minute efficiency huge on spectacle, costume adjustments, pyro and lasers. Throughout the snaking groove of ‘P.I.M.P.’, he descends from a tower of lights on wires (sadly not upside-down just like the ‘In Da Membership’ video or his much-memed Tremendous Bowl look), whereas ingenious shifting backgrounds take us to varied New York locales, into da Membership, and Tron-like futuristic landscapes.

Flanked by two G-Unit lieutenants and backed by a full-band on raised platforms, his blockbuster 34-song set whirrs by in mixtape fashion. And in a nostalgic set, some moments naturally really feel unreconstructed – corresponding to when ladies clad in PVC outfits carry out lapdances to 48-year-old Fiddy and his crew throughout his lubricious 2003 Lil’ Kim team-up ‘Magic Stick’; or when ‘Jeremih’ – who other than becoming a member of Fiddy for his or her collab ‘Down On Me’, additionally acts as a help act alongside Busta Rhymes – performs a solo interlude model of ‘Birthday Intercourse’, whereas seemingly miming cunnilingus with a dancer spread-eagled over the piano.

That apart, a celebration environment reigns: by way of the ’00s motifs of the Neptunes’ sparse funk on ‘Sweet Store’, Timbaland’s ‘Disco Inferno’ and a lovelorn ’21 Questions’. A model of his Pop Smoke team-up ‘The Woo’, which is devoted to his late prodigy who was shot and killed in 2020, acts a sobering reminder of those that don’t survive 50 Cent’s personal glock-fuelled creation delusion outlined within the stark ‘Many Males (Demise Want)’.

As confetti spunks into the group throughout a joyous ‘In Da Membership’, prompting the sort of viewers strikes flaunted at each youngsters’ celebration, Fiddy has proved that, whereas music has been parked for the final decade, he nonetheless has the magnetism to display why he was such a giant deal within the first place.

50 Cent performed:

‘I’m On Some Shit’
‘What Up Gangsta’
‘I Get Cash’
‘Hate It or Love It’
‘If I Can’t’
‘Magic Stick’
‘Hustler’s Ambition’
‘How We Do’
‘P.I.M.P.’
‘Sweet Store’
‘Disco Inferno’
‘Window Shopper’
‘Finest Good friend’
’21 Questions’
‘Only a Lil Bit’
‘Huge Wealthy City’
‘The Woo’
‘Ayo Expertise’
‘Down on Me’
‘Birthday Intercourse’
‘Child by Me’
‘Many Males (Want Demise)’
‘I’m The Man’
‘In da Membership’
‘Hate Bein’ Sober’
‘Patiently Ready’
‘Cuffin Season’
‘Statute of Limitations’
‘Wanksta’
‘Stunt 101’
‘Poor Lil’ Wealthy’
‘Again Down’
‘Southside’
‘I’ll Whip ya Head Boy’