As 50 Cent commemorates the 20th anniversary of his groundbreaking debut album “Get Rich or Die Tryin’,” the G-Unit leader has unveiled his least favorite song from the project that propelled him to stardom.
During a backstage conversation with Apple Music 1’s Rebecca Judd at the final London O2 show of his Final Lap Tour, 50 Cent shed light on his initial reservations about “Many Men.”
“At the time, ‘Many Men’ was my least favorite track because we were in the boom-bap era,” Fif explained. “We were all about that hard-hitting intensity, the high-energy beats, and ‘Many Men’ is the slowest song on the album. But now, that’s the tempo artists are rapping to. So the fast tempo, hard-hitting beats, that was the vibe of that era. And the whole album embodied that energy.”
In 2020, 50 Cent acknowledged the enduring influence of “Many Men” after Spotify named it the most influential song of the year.
“They made it that for me,” 50 conceded, crediting 21 Savage and Pop Smoke for revitalizing the song with their unique interpretations. “The younger artists doing it over, they made it that. And it’s because they feel the same way.”
Fif further elaborated, “‘Many Men’ was the slowest track on ‘Get Rich or Die Tryin’, which is fitting for today’s music. Because production-wise, it fits now. Musically now, things are slower. They like rapping to R&B beats. So it provides more space for them to make changes in the cadences.”
In another segment of the interview, 50 Cent revealed his first major purchase after securing a $1 million record deal with Shady Records and Aftermath Entertainment under Eminem and Dr. Dre in 2002. The rapper disclosed that he used the money to acquire a gift for a cherished family member.
He recounted, “I bought my grandmother a C220 Benz. I’ll never forget because when I got the car, it was the first thing I bought when the deal was finalized.”
50, raised by his grandparents after his mother’s passing when he was eight, admitted that his grandfather wasn’t thrilled with the gift, considering he remained stuck with their old car.
“And then I went on the tour and I came back, and my grandfather was on the porch, and he was having a moment. So he was like, ‘I just went to work. I went to work, hurt my back, came back, and she done brainwashed my kids.'”
“And he was talking about my grandmother because he was looking at her car in the front yard, and he didn’t have a car. He had the older car, and he said, ‘I went to work, hurt my back. Until my back hurt, everything.'”
Listen to 50 Cent’s full interview on the Rebecca Judd Show here.
