Fiddy Freebie

It looks like 50 Cent learned a thing or two from Lil Wayne.

A year ago this week, Lil Wayne became the only artist in the past four years to sell over a million albums in a single week thanks largely to the hype he built releasing free mixtapes. With 50 Cent's Before I Self-Destruct currently slated for September, the NYC rapper is following suit.

"War Angel," the first of three promised mixtapes, debuted Tuesday night as a free download on his website ThisIs50. New tracks include "C.R.E.A.M. 2009," an apparent response to the Wu-Tang Clan original classic, and the Estelle-channeling "London Girl." 50 Cent stays street tough with "Redrum" (see "The Shining" for explanation), and he goes more pop with "Get the Message" and "I Gotta Win."Best of all, "War Angel" builds on the Auto-Tune backlash with opening track lines like, "Goons don't use Auto-Tune."

As you might have guessed, the mixtape is short on humility and long on challenging syntax (see Stewie Griffin's thoughts on Fiddy grammar here). While the disc mostly features the same ol' gangsta ramble, the rapper does offer funkier, more soulful moments that include a guest spot by Robin Thicke.

With this digital release leading the way, the '90s-inspired "Sincerely Southside, Part II" will follow on July 4 and a G-Unit mixtape after that. Fiddy fan or not, the price is right, and these albums offer a good preview of what's to come in September.

Top photo courtesy of Sacha Walman, the rest by Shareif Ziyadat.