50 Cent’s 2007 album, Curtis, has hit a major milestone on Spotify — and he’s letting his haters know about it.
On Thursday (February 12), the G-Unit head honcho took to Instagram to share a graphic reporting that his third studio album has surpassed one billion streams on the platform.
"I thought I only had one good album," he joked in the caption. "Which one of your albums got a billion streams that ain’t good? Because I know you got bars. LOL."
Curtis debuted to mixed reviews on its release in September 2007, but sold 691,000 copies in its first week, landing at the No. 2 spot on the Billboard 200 chart.
The album arrived on the same day as Kanye West’s Graduation, which snatched the top spot with 957,000 copies sold. The two albums sparked a lot of competition, both going on to secure lasting commercial success.
Assumedly, the "one good album" 50 is referring to is Get Rich or Die Tryin’, his 2003 major label debut that is regarded a modern classic by many.
Despite 50 Cent’s success on the charts, the rapper hasn’t released a studio album since 2014’s Animal Ambition. In an interview ahead of the Super Bowl last week, where he debuted a new commercial with DoorDash, 50 Cent suggested that he’s going to make more music eventually, but noted that there’s a lot of pressure on aging hip-hop stars to maintain their relevancy.
"Look, I’m going to make music. I’m excited that this is the feeling," he began. "The general consensus is they want to hear something new from me, right? You can have the best verse, but I don’t think you should have the best verse at 50 years old. … I think hip-hop is connected to youth culture, and I think simplicity is a part of why it’s the best music."
When it was pointed out to him that rappers such as Nas have continued to achieve commercial and critical success in their later years, he suggested that the Queens legend would understand where he’s coming from.
"If you ask Nas to compare what that feels like, those four or five joints versus what it felt like when his first album came out, he would not say it’s the same thing," Fif said. "It doesn’t feel the same to him ‘cause I’m telling you it’s different. If you consecutively release material and you go out, I would say you’re as hot as the last thing you did. Or if you’re not generating interest in other platforms and other areas, that’s where it’s at."