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 Shady/ Aftermath/ G-Unit: The Family Stand
50 Cent & G-Unit: Expect The Unexpected
Eminem: Embattled But Not Embittered
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Visitors getting off the elevator at the G-Unit offices in midtown Manhattan are greeted by a huge poster of 50. A big flat-screen TV hanging on the wall plays the 50 Cent "New Breed" DVD. Attractive female employees buzz around everywhere, and showrooms are stocked with clothes for both men and women. Lloyd Banks' gravelly voice steamrolls through the air as The Hunger for More blasts out of the speakers. Eventually 50 himself rolls up, wearing a fur coat from his G-Unit Collection.
With his clique established, 50 is once again focusing on himself and his own music with The Massacre. And no one is putting more pressure on 50 than 50.
"If I sell one record under what I sold on my first album, in my head that's a failure," he declares.
Of course 50 is following his M.O. of beef records and female-friendly club ditties to draw fans into his musical web, but all those millions of records sold hasn't drastically altered 50's bread-and-butter approach of 'hood narratives and introspective songs.
"I was hoping that the record would still be grimy and gutter and street, because you know how sometimes after you sell a lot of records, the pressure is to come with those numbers again and [some artists] come out with a real polished and shiny album," says record executive Rich Nice, who used to be 50's A&R rep at Columbia Records. Besides producer Sha Money, Dr. Dre and Eminem, 50 says Rich is one of the only people he'll play his records for way in advance to get his opinions about what his album needs. 50 also credits Nice, as well as the late Jam Master Jay, for helping him develop his skill for writing catchy hooks. "When I was listening to the record, I was bugging, because it was some hard sh--," Nice adds.
"[On The Massacre] I gave them all the stuff I missed," 50 explains. "I didn't give them everything [on Get Rich or Die Tryin']. It was just one album, it's not a lot, man. In my head I still feel like I'm going uphill. I don't feel that I have peaked, at all. I don't feel like I have made my best record. I got so much ahead of me that I can't look at my accomplishments and be like, 'That's it.' "
Looking at some of the fruits of 50's labor, it's hard to imagine him needing anything more. It's February 17, three days after The Massacre was originally supposed to drop on Valentine's Day, and 50 Cent is determined to throw the best album-release party the world has ever seen, even if he doesn't have product out on the market for another few weeks. He's opened up his Connecticut mansion to about 1,200 people who have either won a contest, work for him, are his personal friends or who got a hook-up by any means necessary. 50, Lloyd Banks, Tony Yayo and Young Buck would eventually perform, and at any given moment you could see an NBA player or a rap legend like Slick Rick walking around.
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Photo: Interscope/MTV News
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