against all odds

50 cent bets on sure things for the soundtrack to his life.

story OLIVER WANG

hate him or love him, you can’t knock 50 Cent’s hustle. In 2005, he managed to release The Massacre not once but twice, oversee albums for the Game, Tony Yayo, and Young Buck, sign M.O.P. and Mobb Deep, tour with Eminem and Lil Jon, and dis half the rappers in the game. There’s also something about an upcoming condom and sex toy line, but let’s not get into that.

Closing out the year, 50 saw his biopic, Get Rich or Die Tryin’, released and used the occasion to record another 18 songs—he’s nothing if not prolific. 50 signed up over a dozen producers for this, including old mainstays like Dr. Dre, Havoc, and Hi-Tek, but also emerging trackmasters like K.O., Nick Speed, and Jake One. Fitting for the album’s rewind to 50’s past, the soundtrack dips back as well, plumbing the deep soul catalogs of the ’60s and ’70s for almost all its sample inspirations.

1 Hustler’s Ambition B-Money’s track for the album’s opener grooves on the smooth sound of “I Need You,” a 1978 ballad by one of Philly’s many legendary soulmen, Frankie Beverly and his late-’70s group Maze. Off Maze’s second album, Golden Time of Day, “I Need You,” clocks in at an epic 10 minutes and it’s an impressive arrangement that builds with the slow, patient grace of a Curtis Mayfield or Isaac Hayes song but switches into a mid-tempo funk jam midway through.

2 What If On this pseudo-sequel of “21 Questions,” Nick Speed turns to another legendary churner of butter soft jams, Bobby Womack and his “Woman’s Gotta Have It.” After spending the 1960s as a failed lead artist but popular sideman (his guitar skills were legendary before his vocal stylings came into favor), “Woman’s Gotta Have It” was his first number one R&B hit, appearing on his second album, Understanding from 1972. It was also a collaborative effort that literally reflected part of Womack’s past: engineer Daryll Carter co-wrote the song, along with Womack’s stepdaughter, Linda Campbell, who also happened to be the daughter of Bobby’s mentor, Sam Cooke.

3 When Death Becomes You Brownsville’s M.O.P. ante up on their sole contribution to the soundtrack, a cut assembled by Kickdrum Productions and Recognize Reel. In sharp contrast to M.O.P.’s speaker-busting vocal volume, the production team went with a quiet tune for its sample source: “(You’re Gone But) Always In My Heart,” a sleeper song from The Supremes. Early enough into their career that Diana Ross wasn’t yet scoring top billing, the Supremes recorded the song for their 1967 The Supremes Sing Holland-Dozier-Holland, a tribute to Motown’s most potent songwriting team.

4 Fake Love For Tony Yayo’s middle-finger anthem for fugazi friends, producer K.O. manages to make one of soul jazz’s sunniest cuts sound dark as night. Roy Ayers probably didn’t intend for his classic “Everybody Loves the Sunshine” (from the same titled, 1976 LP) to sound so damn sinister but K.O. flips the song’s synths into some low end illness. In fact, had K.O. not looped the OG’s “my life, my life, my life” chorus, you could have mistaken the sample source for some moody German prog rock or something.

5 Window Shopper Likewise, it’s a little strange to hear Bob Marley’s signature anthem for insurrection being used by 50 Cent to brag about blasting thieves and sexing freaks. However, C. Styles and Sire seem to find the original natty dread’s “Burnin’ and Lootin’” (from Burnin’, 1973) the right inspiration for a slicked-up interpolation which shines up the original songs keys with a brighter, lighter touch.

6 Born Alone, Die Alone Mobb Deep’s Havoc handles the beat for fellow G-Unit brethren Lloyd Banks here. Havoc turns to one of the more obscure sources on the album, “Friends Or Lovers” originally recorded by the short-lived California funk group Act One. Led by Millie Jackson’s songwriter and producer Rafael Gerald, Act One only ever recorded one album, from which “Friends Or Lovers” was a minor R&B hit-—enough so that the song’s been comped a few times since.

7 Best Friend 50 Cent does it up for the ladies yet again on this syrupy rap ballad, produced by Reflection Eternal member, Hi-Tek. The producer turns to a 1972 song by Valerie Simpson – this was right before Ashford and Simpson had joined as a duo – called “Silly, Wasn’t I,” off of the New Yorker’s third solo (and eponymous) album. Hi-Tek includes snippets of Simpson’s vocals throughout the song, though mercifully, doesn’t do the “sped-up soul” style that’s quickly become a hip-hop gimmick.

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