The Rise and Fall of the G-Unit Empire

I can remember going on a quadruple double date with my brother and friends back in 1999 and hearing How to Rob on the car stereo of the Benz I was riding in; it was something that had never been done before. An unknown rapper (50 Cent) was throwing playful jabs at all the known and established acts in the industry, and having fun with it. It was actually a nice song. I bet a lot of the rap listeners of today think 50 Cents first album was Get Rich or Die Trying.


Nope! He actually had a whole career with Columbia records back in 99/2000. In fact,  he had another single Thug Love, which featured Destinys Child...the two songs appear on his original first album, Power of the Dollar (2000). I actually liked the Thug Love track cos  Mase had just retired from rapping, and 50 Cent was really sounding like Mase back then...back before he was shot in the mouth.


Fast-forward a couple of months, the song with Destinys Child is getting airplay on radio, its late 99 early 2000...and just a couple of days before the video to the song was shot, 50 cent got shot 3 times. Yea, i said 3 times. He was shot at 9 times, but only 3 bullets hit him. There police documents to support this- he was shot once in the mouth, once in the thumb, and once in the leg.


He was dropped from Columbia Records after the shooting, and he took time off from music to recuperate with his health. When he got back on his feet, he couldn't find any studio to work in because he had been blacklisted in the industry so 50 Cent traveled to Canada to record. He came back and started flooding the scene with his music through the mixtape circuit. He also, in 2002 released a compilation album independently titled Guess Who's Back, which featured two songs with Nas (Too Hot and Who You Rep With)...this album was what got him signed to Shady/Aftermath later in 2002.


At this time, he had already built his G-Unit team, which had the original members, Lloyd Banks and Tony Yayo; Young Buck was signed later when Yayo had to go to Jail. 50 Cent was unstoppable after he signed with Eminem and Dre and he kept dropping mixtapes for the streets, one (50 Is the Future) of which featured his hit track Wanksta; which was later included on Eminem's 8 Mile soundtrack album. 50 dropped his debut album, Get Rich or Die Trying in Feb of 2003, and the album debuted at the number one spot on the billboard chart selling 872,000 copies in its first week in stores. From then on, I guess I can say the rest is history.


His buzz was crazy, and as a smart business man, he gave his soldiers a chance to shine; releasing a joint album with them, titled Beg for Mercy in the same year (Nov 2003). The G-Unit album debuted at number 3 on the billboard chart, selling 377,000 copies in its first week, and going on to sell over 2 million copies in the U.S alone. At this point, the G-Unit buzz was crazy; there was no other clique that could touch them on the scene. Fans just wanted more and more...they wanted to hear more Young Buck...they wanted to hear more Lloyd Banks...they wanted to know who Tony Yayo really was, and why he appeared only twice on the album. It was really that crazy! And they were really that BIG!


They were on the air-ways and getting steady video play on MTV and B.E.T through out the 4th quarter of 2003, and the first quarter of 2004. And when things started to cool off, Banks was the next to get the solo limelight. He released his smash single, On Fire on April 2004, and his debut album, Hunger For More dropped two months later, selling 465,000 copies in it s first week and going on to sell over a million copies in the U.S alone. Multiple singles from the album dropped, and then in August of the same year, it was Buck's turn. Young Buck's Straight Outta Cashville dropped in August 2004, selling 261,000 copies in its first week, and gong on to sell over a million copies.


At this time, nothing could go wrong at G-Unit, and Dr Dre decided to align an artist he had been working with the team; that's how The Game got signed to G-Unit; Although, Game's signing wasn't a full signing, just a joint signing with Dre's Aftermath label. Game would later release big collaborative singles with 50 Cent, How We Do, and Hate it or Love it, which went on to be bigger than any releases from the other members signed under the G-Unit label; I guess this was the beginning of the empire's downfall…the clash of the egos.


I would say it serves as the peak and the beginning of the downfall. Game's album had a heavy buzz, and around the time that it got released, 50 was also promoting his second album, The Massacre. 50 dropped a diss song off the album, titled Piggy Bank to cause controversy and thereby boost album sales. The diss track fired shots at Nas, Fat Joe and Jadakiss. And, incidentally, Game got caught off guard by an interviewer who asked what he felt about these emcees that his associate was going at. Game responded by saying he had no problem with them, and that he respected and would like to work with Jadakiss, Fat Joe and Nas in the future.


50 Cent took this as offensive, and kicked Game off the G-Unit group on radio. They later squashed the beef, and Game's debut album (The Documentary) dropped on Jan 18 2005 selling 568,000 copies in its first week, and going on to sell 5 million copies worldwide. They squashed the beef pretty quickly, but the reconciliation between him and 50 went sour later and then Game started an all out G-Unot campaign. I would say this, disses from Fat Joe, Jadakiss and the whole D-Block camp started, slowly, but gradually, the downfall of G-Unit.


By the time 50 started signing everybody to the label, from Olivia, to M.O.P, to Mobb Deep, Spyda Lock, and the rest, the label was already going down. I think Mobb Deep were the only ones that enjoyed a little of that G-Unit shine before the ship went down. And it wasn't even for their good in the long run, cos they lost a lot of fans because of that move.






50 Cent came in the game dissing other rappers, and with every of his albums after that he had someone new to diss cos he found a formula that worked for him- controversy sells. With Get Rich or Die Trying, he was going at Ja Rule and the whole Murder Inc Crew; with The Massacre, he was going at Nas, Jadakiss, Fat Joe and later Game. In 2007, with the Curtis album, he was going at  Kanye West, but at this point, his empire had already started crumbling. He went from selling 6 million copies of The Massacre in 2005, to only selling a million with Curtis album 2 years later after 6 videos before dropping the album, and a budget of $26 million which he failed to recoup. And it became worse when Before I Self Destruct managed to sell only 500,000 copies after a whole year on the chart.


He once laughed at people that sold that low, now he was humbled. And the negative gimmick he used in boosting sales of his album had backfired on him. Interscope dropped his G-Unit label in 2009, and LLoyd Banks had to release his third album on E1, an independent label. I guess what goes around comes around. So, ladies and Gentlemen, that's the Rise and fall of the G-Unit Empire.