Thursday was 50 Cent’s 42nd birthday (welcome to the old man club — now maybe you can enjoy Jay’s new album), and his friends and family were probably understandably stressed out about what gifts to give the guy who invented the money phone.
Eminem seems to have found the perfect thing.
The hotly-disputed, but technically gifted label boss and once-in-a-generation rapper took to Instagram (along with his weird new beard) to reveal that there was once a 50 Cent verse so good that it made him consider dropping out of the rap game altogether. He recited the verse acapella, allowing listeners to appreciate just how intricate the 16-bar barrage of alliteration and wordplay really is.
“Picture a perfect picture, picture me in a pimp hat. Picture me starting shit, picture me busting my gat. Picture police mad they ain’t got a picture of that. Picture me being broke, picture me smoking a sack. Picture me coming up, picture me rich from rap. Picture me blowing up, now picture me going back. To my momma’s basement to live, shit, picture that. Where I’m from it’s a fact, you gotta watch your back. You wear a vest without a gat, you’s a target, Jack. Hustle hard, money stack, sell that dope, sell that crack. Sell that pack, sell that gat, sell that pussy, holla back. 50 Cent, too much Henny, man, I’m bent, I’m outta here.”
50’s verse on “Places To Go” from the soundtrack to Eminem’s 2002 foray into Hollywood movie-making, 8 Mile, was indeed one of 50 Cent’s top verses, coming out at a time when the young rapper from Jamaica, Queens was still a hungry unknown. There was a time when he was considered the heir apparent to Marshall Mather’s rap throne, joking in his monster 2003 hit “In Da Club,” “When you sell like Eminem, you get plenty of groupie love.” Well, 14 years later it seems like the mutual respect .between the two in still intact — but I’m sure Eminem’s fans are glad that he really didn’t follow through on his plans to quit. You can hear “Places To Go” below.
Meantime, what do you think about weird, new bearded Eminem? Life comes at you fast, man.
