He came through the airport in a bulletproof vest, unsure if it was all a prank. But when 50 Cent met Eminem, it was the start of something real and something huge.
Today marks 23 years since 50 Cent signed to Shady Records on June 17, 2002, a moment that changed the trajectory of hip hop and launched one of the most iconic careers of the 21st century.
Long before the fame, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson was recording over beats in a friend’s basement and learning the craft under the mentorship of Jam Master Jay. He absorbed the fundamentals: song structure, bar counts, and hooks, and set out to make a name for himself. After being turned down by Def Jam because Irv Gotti thought that he sounded too much like Jay-Z, Fif broke through the underground with the “How to Rob”. The bold single stirred up reactions from everyone: Jay-Z, Nas, Big Pun, Wu-Tang, and got him a spot touring with Nas.
Then came the shooting.
Nine bullets, point-blank. A brush with death that would shape his story forever. Fifty survived, recovered, and came back harder, recording dozens of songs in Canada when major studios would not touch him. He flipped other people’s beats into his own underground classics and released the mixtape Guess Who’s Back? in 2002.
That is when Eminem heard the tape and saw something no one else did.
Slim flew Fifty out to LA, and what happened next felt unreal to Fif. He arrived wearing a bulletproof vest, expecting a setup or a prank. “It was wild”, he later told Million Dollaz Worth of Game. “I thought I was being Punk’d”. But instead of cameras, there was Eminem — genuinely hyped, ready to rap along to Fifty’s lyrics and ready to sign him.
“He hugged me and felt the vest”, 50 Cent recalled. “I was like, ‘Yo, this is going to be the biggest shit ever, right?’ He was so excited it made me doubt it was real”.
In fact, Eminem was so excited that he barely let Fifty get a word in. “I was trying to show him how into him I was”, Em remembered later. “But I think I probably overdid it”.
He did not.
Dr. Dre signed on, too. With a $1 million deal, 50 Cent dropped “No Mercy, No Fear”, and “Wanksta” landed on the 8 Mile soundtrack. Then came “In Da Club” and the debut album “Get Rich or Die Tryin’”, a record-breaking, game-changing release that sold 872,000 copies in its first week and defined the sound of a generation.
The rest is legend.
Fifty went on to form G-Unit Records, release multiple platinum albums, and eventually pivot into TV, creating some of the most successful shows of the past decade. But through it all, he has never stopped riding for Eminem.
“I love him to death, I do”, 50 Cent once said.
And the love is mutual. When Em spoke at Fifty’s Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony, he summed it up like this:
“This is not only a business partner to me, it’s one of the best friends I’ve ever known in the world. It’s much more fun to be his friend than his enemy because this guy is relentless. And the same way he is in battles, he’s relentless in business. He does it all. And he’s also helped me through a lot of hard times in my own life, and he’s always been there when I needed him”.
June 17, 2002. Twenty-three years later, the bond and the legacy are alive.
