50 Cent, Nottingham Arena

Welcome to the great bling and brawn sale. Everything must go!

50 Cent doesn't care about black people. Why? Because 50 Cent doesn't care about people. America's most prominent black man is an urban survivalist whose amoral tales of urban survivalism belong in a lineage which goes back through Ice-T to Iceberg Slim. The rapper born Curtis Jackson is an exemplar of acquisitive, rapacious every-man-for-himself capitalism, the American Dream at its most naked.

It's all about bling and brawn. There's no bigger picture with 50 Cent, no Chuck D-style analysis of cause and effect, merely street-level reportage and dialogue: chilling threats and excerpts from the Mike Tyson school of courtship.

What 50 Cent isn't, then, is a charity. Throughout every interval, on a constant loop, we're shown commercials for products from his G-Unit empire. There's his own "vitamin water" drink. His own biopic, Get Rich Or Die Tryin'. The new album by his buddy Tony Yayo. The new single from Olivia, his very own Beyoncé. G-Unit Reebok trainers from Foot Locker. G-Unit ringtones. G-Unit watches. I haven't seen this much product placement outside Josie and the Pussycats. With a portfolio like this, if 50 Cent is really still living in the kind of 'hood where "niggas got love for me but I ain't goin' nowhere without a strap", he needs to have a serious word with his accountant.

That said, he does to his credit believe in value for money. This tour, hastily arranged after the original tour was cancelled due to co-headliner Eminem being treated for a bad case of Nervous Euphemism, is no mere cash-in. There are, it must be said, a lot of empty seats. But those who do attend are treated to a truly stellar line-up.

Following Roll Deep, there's another commercial break. I glance up at the screen, and 50 Cent and G-Unit are doing rough-and-tumble things together. I'm reminded of Blackadder wrestling with his "manservant". And also of the well-documented phenomenon of ostensibly straight hip-hop thugs having same-sex intercourse but not considering it a gay act. But I wouldn't say that to his face. Then the curtain drops and, in front of a decapitated Statue of Liberty in a post-apocalyptic Projects setting, that face appears, that famous perma-grimace.

Everywhere he goes, 50 Cent hears bullets. If they aren't whizzing past his head, they're in his head; and if they aren't in his head, they're on his backing track. Every song tonight ends with a heart-stoppingly loud gunshot. All this in a city where the repercussions from the shooting of Danielle Beccan rumble on (a fact which, oddly, makes you glad to live in Britain). Seemingly unaware of these ironies, 50 Cent leads a combined tribute to 2Pac and Biggie. Has he learned nothing from their deaths?

After a handful of hits, including "21 Questions" (I still think the line "I love you like a fat kid loves cake" is brutal genius), the cavalcade of guests begins. There's Olivia herself, for the duet "Candy Shop". Wonky-eyed and long-nosed, she ain't in the Kelis class, but I wouldn't say it to her face either.

50 re-emerges in a white suit for "P.I.M.P.", then we get turns from Ma$e, G-Unit protégé Young Buck, the corpulent M.O.P. with his Foreigner-sampling "Cold As Ice", and tedious homophobes Mobb Deep. Even though they pre-date 50 Cent by around a decade, they're both wearing G-Unit merchandise: proof that in hip-hop capitalism, anyone, however "real", can be bought.

At the climax of the show, 50 Cent and the whole G-Unit crew drench themselves - and the front rows - in bottles of mineral water for the duration of a song. This time, I'm reminded of a wet T-shirt competition for Muscle Marys at Heaven. But I wouldn't say that to their faces.

s.price@independent.co.uk