The entertainment industry is a fickle one and most people don’t get more than their 15 seconds of fame. Rap music in particular is a difficult genre to maintain relevance in. While there are resilient beasts such as LL Cool J and Nas the majority of rappers come and go into the limelight to fast it’s so easy to forget they even existed and once brought us hits we jammed to. One of these resilient beasts that just doesn’t seem to go away is 50 Cent. He had been underground for a few years before making a huge splash with his debut album Get Rich Or Die Tryin’ in 2003. As if that was not enough he released another massive album The Massacre in 2005. Both albums went diamond internationally selling more than 10 million records each. By the time he got to his third album Curtis the musical landscape had changed and he did not sell as much. But the album went platinum nonetheless.
He slowly shifted away from music and started concentrating on various ventures including selling headphones, bottled water, sex toys, videogames, movies, etc. The music scene continued to change as southern rap music took over its east coast and west coast counterparts. Many rappers lost their popularity because the music they made didn’t fit the new standard. Many thought 50 Cent was one of them. Recently he’s been more known for his film and TV ventures, most notably the hit series Power. He also made headlines when he filed for bankruptcy. The past few years he released some songs and G-Unit projects here and there but he never managed to achieve as much major chart and commercial success as before…until this year.
In February this year 50 dropped a single titled I’m The Man from his eleventh mixtape The Kanan Tape. A remix of the song which features Chris Brown was also released and it has enjoyed a lot of popularity. Earlier this week the RIAA announced that the track has gone gold for surpassing 500,000 units sold and streamed. In a day and age when getting a gold let alone platinum single is more challenging than it was in the past due to the high level of piracy it’s a great achievement for 50. The song has once again brought 50 back to where he belongs on the charts.
What many people don’t know is that there’s an older version of the song which was originally done by Sonny Digital (the producer and featured artist on 50’s version) for his own solo project. 50 came across the song and eventually linked up with Sonny to make a new version of the track. One thing that stands out is that 50 used a flow pattern similar to Sonny’s. Sonny’s version of the song is below.
What 50 has proven with the success of I’m The Man is that he’s a resilient man. 13 years after his debut album and he’s still able to make infectious and commercially viable music. One other artist who initially became widely popular at more or less the same time frame as 50 Cent is Fat Joe. Joe has also experienced a resurgence in popularity after many years of no hit singles. He and Remy Ma released All The Way Up, a single which has reached platinum status. I guess the year 2016 has been a good year for the both 50 and Joe who had a notorious beef back in the day which resulted in the release of beef songs such as 50’s Piggy Bank and Joe’s My Fofo.
The music video for the I’m The Man remix which features Chris Brown and Sonny has over 61 million views on YouTube while the original version which only has 50 and Sonny on the hook has more than 17 million views as at the time of writing this article.
You can listen to the interview where Sonny discusses how the meeting of the two artists happened on SoundCloud.
