50 Cent

Selling four million copies of your full-length major-label debut in nine weeks can mean only one thing: Time to milk the cash cow. At three tracks, 50 Cent’s The New Breed is light on music, but the accompanying DVD includes two hours of goodies that hard-core fans won’t want to miss. In addition to videos for his popular tunes (“In Da Club,” Wanksta”), the disc includes two minidocumentaries, an entire concert, several live studio clips and the usual assortment of behind-the-scenes high jinks, sales pitches and propaganda. The conspicuously white audience that packs the Detroit show, featuring D-12, Obie Trice and Eminem, underscores the crossover appeal that launched 50’s Interscope debut, Get Rich or Die Tryin’, to the top of the pop charts.

Prior to taking his ride on the Shady Dre gravy train, 50 was just another rapper peddling his wares to the East Coast underground. After releasing an EP for Sony in 2000 and then being dropped by the label, 50 hit the home studio like a demon, cranking out tracks by the pound and issuing a string of indie mix tapes. Now these seminal demos have taken on a life of their own, re-emerging on the charts in the wake of Rich‘s success.

Guess Who’s Back compiles a number of early works and has been released and reissued by a number of fly-by-night labels. Less polished than Rich, the disc’s raggedy beats and gutter raps tell the tale of a struggling young MC far better than 8 Mile did. Lacking the George Lucas-like production of Dre and Eminem, Guess Who’s Back is more lyrical and less melodic, making Rich‘s grit sound positively polished by comparison. Uptown anthems such as “Corner Bodega” and “As the World Turns” come custom-fitted with singsong choruses and subliminal hooks, but a trio of freestyles concludes the disc, affirming the theory that 50’s street-savvy spitting comes straight from the source.