50 Cent thinks 'Empire' is a lot like 'Glee' — and no, that's not a compliment
Empire's ratings reign is unprecedented, but not everyone's kneeling at the hip-hop drama's throne.
Specifically, 50 Cent, who produces a hip-hop series of his own: Power on Starz, which returns for Season 2 this summer. In a series of now-deleted Instagram posts, the rap mogul accused Empire's ad campaign of copying Power's, which star
on Twitter last month.
Do you see a resemblance?
When we caught up with 50 Cent in New York Thursday to talk G-Unit's new EP, The Beast is G-Unit, we asked him more about Fox's marketing for the show.
It is what it is. They took it, they copied it, and it's because they were targeting the same audience that 'Power' had for that show — and it worked. And I'm happy the project worked because I have friends [Timbaland, Terrence Howard and Cuba Gooding Jr.] working on that project.
As for Taraji's tweets (
, "I pay attention to $'s NOT cents")?
Taraji, she got a little upset with me expressing my opinion, and it's fine. It's a woman, and she just happens to be an attractive woman, so I have no problem with attractive women when they're angry with me. I actually, I feel tingles when they start to get to yelling at me. I feel special, like, 'Maybe you just need to express your energy in a different way.'
And while he's admittedly watched Empire ...
I have, I've seen it a couple times, and it feels like it moves really fast. It moves so (quickly), I kind of got lost. I missed the second and third episode, and I caught the fourth ... I don't really know what's going on.
... he thinks it's a lot like Glee, specifically in the way the music sounds.
The creative choices are dropping all the ambiance of the room out. To me, it just feels like a musical. If they would've left the ambiance of the room — have music playing from the stereo, and had the guy rap, like you would hear me rapping live in this room right now — you would still stay present in the room. When you take all of the sound out, and it just sounds like a recording playing through there? It's like a musical, that's the only other time we've seen it that way. So we directly associate that with that kind of project like 'Glee.'
But ultimately, you can't compare Power and Empire.
There are certain things you can't do on Fox that you can do on the Starz network. It's like premium cable vs. commercial television. Two worlds apart.