50 Cent Essentials

Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson III hit mainstream music like a meteorite in 2003, beginning with the utter ubiquity of his Dre-helmed smash “In da Club”. The Queens rapper’s Get Rich or Die Tryin’ became the fastest-selling debut in America at the time, riding high on the fact that Fif had survived being shot nine times in 2000. Besides cementing his legend as a hard-partying survivor, the album fleshed him out further as a concerned romantic partner (“21 Questions”) and shrewd businessman (“P.I.M.P.”). The latter image was quickly bolstered by his mentoring of breakout talent like Lloyd Banks and The Game via his G-Unit crew, as well as his overnight (and long-lasting) acting career. Fif’s talent for laying down grounded, street-smart flow over poppy, minimalistic backdrops continued throughout the decade, whether he was playing it sultry (2005’s “Candy Shop”), flipping Biz Markie (2006’s “Best Friend”), teaming up with Justin Timberlake and Timbaland (2007’s “Ayo Technology”) or slipping easily into R&B (2009’s “Baby by Me”, with Ne-Yo). By 2014, he had expanded his empire by co-creating the hit TV series Power—even providing the theme song with “Big Rich Town”—and penned the first of several books about getting ahead in the world. Fif’s enduring success across so many spheres of influence hasn’t been so much a self-fulfilling prophecy as it has been an unwavering feat of self-belief from the start.