50 Cent Talks About Future, Next Album, and More

50 Cent digs Lil Wayne, but he can’t help but notice the similarities between Weezy’s summer smash “Lollipop” and his own 2005 hit “Candy Shop.” “‘Lollipop’” is ‘lick lick lick lick it like a lollipop,’” 50 told Rolling Stone, singing the verse to prove his point. “And ‘Candy Shop’ is ‘I’ll take you to the Candy Shop/ I’ll let you lick the lollipop.’”

Rip-off or not, 50 is no longer spinning Wayne’s track — or any other rappers’, for that matter. “”I’m not really listening to anyone else’s records,” he says, adding that his new album, Before I Self-Destruct, will drop by the end of the year. “Now I’m in another space where I gotta make what I’m excited about.”

50 is mum on the details of his new disc — the last on his contract with Interscope Records — but he promises to shake things up. “[Other rappers] can take what I’ve done for the last five years and do their version of it and be successful with momentum,” he says. “Meanwhile, I have to reinvent the wheel.”

50 Cent's new album, "Before I Self Destruct," will be the followup to the "Curtis" album but was actually recorded before his last album.

50 Cent on why he released "Curtis" instead of "Before I Self Destruct":

"Some people think I changed the title of my album from 'Before I Self Destruct' to 'Curtis', but what I did was, I changed albums. I had Before I Self Destruct, I recorded twelve songs under that actual topic, and then I created the material that is under Curtis, and I felt like this album should come out right now and Before I Self Destruct is gonna be my follow-up record, so I'm probably like three or four records away from completing my next album at this point. And I signed a five-album deal with Interscope, so this Curtis is my third album, and my final studio recording album because the fifth album in my recording contract is a greatest hits album, so technically, I'm about three songs away from completing my music career."

50 Cent described the album as "darker" and more "aggressive" than his previous album and stated, "hands down, [it] will be the best record of that time period".

Speaking about his new album, 50 says "should not expect to see guest appearances like you saw on Curtis". He also described Before I Self Destruct as an entirely different concept, which will setup "the next batch of records" in his career.

So far producers Akon, Timbaland, J.R. Rotem, and Play-N-Skillz have confirmed working on "Before I Self Destruct".

Can 50 bounce back after the failure he had with the G-Unit album?