50 Cent's rhyme slinging on mixtapes paid off its biggest dividend recently,

impressing Eminem so much that he'll be jointly issuing 50's next record

with Dr. Dre.

Specifically, it was a compilation of previously released and new material

that 50 Cent recorded with his clique the G-Unit that caught Em's ear.

"Em had a CD of the music, the CD I put out on the streets, and they

hollered," the Queens rapper explained as he sat in a Detroit hotel room

before recording a duet with Eminem. "It was late. They called me like 9

p.m. on Friday to fly out at 6 the next morning. I flew out to L.A. Em had

two album release parties. Then I sat down and spoke to him the next day. He

was doing voiceovers for '8 Mile.' I met with him and Dre, then we decided

like, 'Yo, we want to do it.' "

Besides Dre and Slim Shady backing up the money truck and squashing all

competing bids by signing him for more than $1 million, 50 said the talent

pool behind Shady Records and Aftermath Entertainment made his decision a

no-brainer.

"There were a lot of people hollering, and then it got really crazy once

they found out [Eminem and Dre] were interested," he said. "[The money]

wasn't really what drew me to the situation. Dr. Dre's production, the

chemistry, there's different things I can do here. He's from N.W.A. He knows

exactly what I'm doing. When he heard the music, he was like, 'I know

exactly what to do with this to make it work.' Here it's, 'Lets make the

best record.' Creatively, it's a better space for me."

In addition to 30 songs he already had in the stash when he met up with Dre

and Shady, he said he's just finished two more.

"I did records produced by both of them already," 50 revealed with a

confident laugh. "I'm straight right now. The Dre record, he wasn't present.

He was in Hawaii, but he left the music for me. The Dre record is totally

different from anything you heard from me before. The Em record is slow,

it's a dark record. I'm [rapping] grimy. It's real hard. It's got my name in

it."