Booth old heads, was yall aware of 50 Cent existence before "Wanksta" came out?

[Canada Goose]

Just curious


It feels like the average person didn't know who 50 was prior to Wanksta coming out


Prior to signing with interscope was dude even Uncle Murda in the mid 2000s status?


I was in elementary school in 02/03 and GRODT is the first Hip Hop album I ever bought

 

[Canada Goose]

Crazy how a underground 50 baited prime Jay Z to take jabs at him. Jay usually ignored unknown rappers who took shots at him but he acknowledged 50 TWICE on the same album

 

[BmoreGorilla]

Yea I remember when How to Rob was all over the radio and had everybody in an uproar like who does this nikka think he is ?

 

[Knucklehead]

How to Rob and Life’s on the Line were pretty huge songs.
50 getting shot was also a very big deal.
Power of the Dollar was heavily bootlegged and a lot of people really liked it.

 

[zayk35]

I'd heard of him in 99 with " How to Rob" and then heard about him getting shot. In early 02 I heard he was killing it on the mixtapes. Then in Summer of 02 a XXL feature about him linking up with Shady/Aftermath dropped and not too long after that "Wanksta" dropped and the rest, as they say is history.

 

[Ashtrey]

How To Rob all over college radio rap shows. Then on SOHH, New York heads were giving us the heads up on his mixtapes. Shout out to galvatron.

 

[WIA20XX]

I was getting promos at the time and mixtapes came through - How to Rob was the only thing I recall.

 

[Sir Richard Spirit]

50 was bigger than Murda ever was

Mid 2000s?



If you was a fan of rap at the time you knew who 50 was. He was buzzin heavy.

By the time Wanksta video came out, 50 was already signed and well into his beef with Ja. Wanksta was towards the end of Ja career. It was on the 8 Mile soundtrack, but I’m positive it was on a GUnit tape first and was big. On radio and online.

 

[JP_614]

 

[Devil Plisken…CMS]

How To Rob ruffled a lot of feathers in real time with on record responses from some of the biggest rappers at the time

 

[Dem313wayz]

I'm assuming if you were in the NYC area east coast you knew about 50.

I had no clue who he was until Wanksta dropped. Was only a freshmen in high school but I remember it circulating around school the beef btw him and Ja.

Then it just seemed 50 blew up overnight to superstardom

 

[Whips-n-Chains]

Yes...I wouldn't say I was actively checking for him or anything. But Ghetto Quran and Power of the Dollar had been around and talked about on the SOHH days, same with How To Rob.

 

[threattonature]

How To Rob all over college radio rap shows. Then on SOHH, New York heads were giving us the heads up on his mixtapes. Shout out to galvatron.

It was bigger than just college radio. There was a reason he was invited to Summer Jam when that dropped. And it wasn't just Jay responding, he got Wu, Pun, and I think Onyx to respond to him. That song was in all the magazines and had him crazy buzz.

 

[⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐]

I ordered Guess Who's Back from Barnes & Noble because it had a track called "50 Bars" and I was searching for a track by the same name from Allen Iverson

What is going to surprise you more here is that the Barnes & Noble music section guy was a definitive nerd cac and he knew who 50 Cent was

 

[BK The Great]

Basically found out on the mixtape circuit with that song, rest was history.