50 Cent - Get Rich or Die Tryin' (2003)

50 Cent Get Rich or Die Tryin' Shady/Aftermath/Interscope (2003) 1. Intro 0:00 2. What Up Gangsta 0:08 3. Patiently Waiting (Feat. Eminem) 3:09 4. Many Men (Wish Death) 8:01 5. In Da Club 12:18 6. High All the Time 15:34 7. Heat 20:03 8. If I Can’t 24:21 9. Blood Hound (Feat. Young Buck) 27:40 10. Back Down 31:41 11. P.I.M.P 35:47 12. Like My Style (Feat. Tony Yayo) 39:59 13. Poor Lil Rich 43:14 14. 21 Questions (Feat. Nate Dogg) 46:34 15. Don’t Push Me (Feat. Lloyd Banks & Eminem) 50:21 16. Gotta Make It to Heaven 54:33 17. Wanksta (Soundtrack Version) 58:33 18. U Not Like Me 1:02:16 19. Life’s On The Line 1:06:32 Let's take it back to Southside Jamaica, Queens during the aftermath of 9/11. You know the story of 50 Cent: born in the gutter, orphaned during childhood, shot nine times, and responded by writing the hardest album of all time. It still holds up in 2026 and is already an American classic. If Metallica's "And Justice for All" ended thrash metal by taking the genre to its logical extremes, then "Get Rich or Die Tryin'" ended gangsta rap. The new school rappers have been trying to out-thug 50 Cent for 25 years and none have succeeded. In closing, I have two comments on the record's lyrics. For an album that largely aspirational, it sounds highly aggressive at all time. It's like a drill sergeant shouting at you that he believes in you. Finally, for what is basically a concept album about booze and weed, 50 Cent has been straight edge the whole time. Ain't that something?