Rought Past brings G-unit together
... of crack. After many encounters with the law and many trips to prison, 50 began to pursue a career in rap in the late ‘90s. With an unsuccessful run at mainstream rap, he turned to the New York mix tape circuit. In 2000, 50 cent was shot nine times in the hip, calf, shoulder, chest, and face in a drive by near his grandmother’s house. After recovering from his bullet wounds he started rapping about his hardships in his life. 50 wrote, “Niggaz know, ain't nothing sweet about me, get back to questions, like ‘50, who shot ya?... You think it was Preme, Freeze or Tah, Tah? Nigga, street sh*t should stay in the street, so keep it on the low But everybody who's somebody already know a few words for any nigga that get hit the f*ck up, my advice if you get shot down, is get the f*ck up” in his song “F*ck You” (www.gunitworld.com/lyrics). He rapped about how he was shot up but that it will not keep him down. After being signed to the MC Eminem’s label Interscope Records, 50 Cent has recorded many songs that have told the story of his life hustling, not knowing his parents, and being shot on the rough streets that he was raised. Christopher Lloyd was raised by his Puerto-Rican mother and grandmother in South Jamaica Queens, New York. With his father behind bars most of his life he had no male role model throughout his youth. Dropping out of high school at 16, he began rapping under the name Lloyd Banks. Hooking up with 50 Cent, who lived around the corner, they formed the rap group G-Unit. In his teenage years Banks hustled to make money to help support his mother. He related this experience in the song “Warrior”, “Uh you heard right mothaf*cker my grandmama's daughter ain't raised no sucker. Heart full of pride and a head full of anger, attitude of a winner infrared for the danger” (www.gunitworld.com/lyrics). On his solo album, The Hunger For More, he rapped about how his mother shaped him to be nothing but the best at whatever he did. Most of his songs are based on him gaining all he can and not settling for anything but the best. His music reflects his upbringing along with his experiences with women. Young Buck born, David Brown, grew up in Nashville, Tennessee. Growing up, his father was never around and his mother had to raise him, his little sister, and his cousins. “By age thirteen he sold his first crack rock to make money and allow himself to get out of the way so his mother could raise all the kids in the house since there wasn’t any income coming into the house” (XXL August 2004). He moved out of the house at the age of fourteen, to keep his mother out of harms way. Throughout his hustling days Buck would sell to anyone who would buy, even his own father. Buck comments on this in the magazine XXL, “I knew he was gonna get drugs ...