50 Cent: yesterday's 'hip hop' at a very modern festival

iPhones and

.

These are perhaps the two things that have advanced the most in the last decade.

And

, even a little more, if we stick to how conservative the latest model launched a few weeks ago by the Cupertino firm is.

50 Cent (real name Curtis Jones, born in New York 47 years ago) debuted in 2003, when there were no

but

ruled the planet, with

a huge success that shipped almost a million copies in its launch week (the rapper has sold 30 million albums in his three fifteen-year career, and accumulates 8.5 million in profits thanks to Bitcoin this last year).

Last night, in his presentation at the Iconic Festival in Seville, it was inevitable, at times, to think that he was facing a somewhat old version of an operating system, that of

, which reinvents itself and progresses at a brutal speed.

And that doesn't have to be a bad thing.

At least not in absolute terms.

royalty

, which means it can sound classic and classic after another, but sometimes it gives off a similar feel to what symphonic rock groups must have had when they toured in the post-punk years.

food stalls

, atmosphere between rapper, bourgeois, scoundrel and

, the presentation on a small stage one hour before 50 Cent of the magnificent young rapper from Huelva of Japanese origin Icy Amane (accompanied by DJ ADR), a pleasant atmosphere... In end, an incomparable setting.

A full-fledged boutique festival, which after the concerts becomes an open-air club and even on nights when there is no event, it opens its doors as a leisure space.

This is Iconic Festival.

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Accompanied by DJ Chubby Chubb, a guitarist, a drummer, two rappers for reinforcement and ventilation (Uncle Yurda and Tany Yayo) and four dancers, 50 Cent dispatched in approximately one hour and twenty minutes the bulk of his first three and most relevant long films, a handful of versions of Pop Smoke, Dr. Dre, Lil Kim or Eminem and, at least, four changes of shirt, all well adjusted to his enormous torso, which after the pranks he suffered for his alleged overweight after performing in the Super Bowl from last year, it once again looks like some kind of

.

"We wanted to bring it, because we believe that

is very important in Seville”, commented a couple of hours before the concert Javier Esteban, director of Icónica Festival, an event that reaches its second edition this year and which C Tangana has already passed through (absolutely full, 18,000 people) and that Over the next few weeks, presentations by Patti Smith, Ludovico Enaudi, Boy George and Social Security are scheduled.

The only casualty, for the moment, has been that of Becky G, who has canceled her performance scheduled for September 29.

“Last year, with the pandemic, we had a very national lineup, but this year we have already managed to have it as eclectic as we were looking for.

And look, one night I was at home watching tours of artists that I can contact on my computer and I saw that 50 Cent was in Malta, or thereabouts, a few days before, and we contacted him.

The idea was to bring the one from New York in collaboration with a Lisbon event, but finally the Portuguese got off the boat.

“It has been complicated.

Until a minute before we hit the stage, we were still discussing with the rapper's team some small but vital details of the

”, a member of the organization points out after the event.

“He has come with the band, he has been brutal.

The other times I had seen him in Spain, I only remember him performing with a DJ”, comments another, reinforcing the idea that working with Curtis Jones is abandoning oneself to providence.

Stage where 50 Cent performed, at the Seville Iconic Festival. CRISTINA QUICLER (AFP)

The camera is constantly focused on a blonde girl

in the second or third row.

The site of the imposing Plaza España in Seville has been reduced to adapt to demand.

There are almost 4,000 people who practically fill this space, perfectly equipped with a track, stands and two boxes.

The same format will be used for Boy George.

With Ludovico Enaudi, who has sold out all the tickets for weeks, the entire audience will be seated.

The girl keeps

, the cameraman won't let her go, and onstage, before launching into a memorable rendition of

50 Cent jokes that he's been making eye contact with her ever since the concert started with a faltering version of

It has taken the rapper 10 minutes and four songs to warm up his voice.

But now he is ready to dispatch the concert that he has booked and, from what we see on the cameras and on his sly face, what will come next.

There is something, both in the constant game of targeting girls in the audience, in the

club dances of the dancers and even in the interlude to smoke marijuana (50 Cent disappears, Bob Marley plays and the two rappers who accompany him turn on a joint the size of an Iphone 14 Pro Max), which seems from another era.

Depending on how you look at it, it's sweet nostalgia or bitter anachronism.

Of course, for most of the public it is the first.

The connection is enormous, the continuous dances and the number of songs recognized by the respectable, extremely high.

lives here

.

And the one from 2007 was one of the best, really.

"I loved it, a lot."

Sitting at a bar in the venue shortly after the end of the concert, Zatu, from the mythical Sevillian rap band SFDK, takes photos with fans who remind him of that night in Chiclana or that other one in Madrid, and reviews what we have just seen about stage.

“I always liked 50 Cent.

It was different.

What he has done has not seemed old to me at all.

concerts

in this festival.

We performed last year and it was very exciting.

My grandmother brought me here with her bicycle when I was little and I have broken my teeth several times on those curbs,” recalls the rapper.

"I'm going to sleep, I'll get up early tomorrow.

And, look, I don't usually go out during the week, but this was worth it.

Many of those songs that were heard on Wednesday nights in

Seville's

Those Wednesday nights were ours, from

.”

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