The 50 Cent song 50 Cent disliked: “My least favourite”
In 2003, Get Rich or Die Tryin’ came out and it was a hip hop tsunami. Each song seemed like it was made to shake speakers in clubs and cars, and 50 Cent freestyled his introduction as a victorious man. However, he confessed to it being his least favourite of its most celebrated tracks when the album was first released, 20 years ago.
In an interview with Rebecca Judd for Apple Music, he admitted that at that time, the song that he least loved was ‘Many Men’.
The reason was simple. The album was pumping with heavy beats and banging tempos, but ‘Many Men (Wish Death)’ danced in a different manner. It was pensive and thoughtful, almost languid, the antithesis of the radio strength that ‘In Da Club’ or ‘P.I.M.P.’ had.
That was disorienting in 2003, 50 said to Judd, because the thread of the song put the track in a different time. “It is nearer to what the kids do now”, he said, indicating that time had lastly caught the record. At the time, however, the song was an exception in a project that was designed to be fast.
The irony lies in the fact that 50 had previously opposed the same battle on tone when ’21 Questions’ had been brought up as too soft by Dr Dre, but 50 insisted on having it on the album. He understood that diversity was important, however risky. With Many Men that danger was reenacted, but it was years ere its forces would show themselves.
The bones of ‘Many Men’ had been built by producer Darrell “Six Figga Digga” Branch long before it was under 50. He took a melancholy string and piano melody out of Tavares’ ‘Out the Picture’ and inserted dragging, heavy drums that were like footsteps in fog. He once estimated that it had taken him about twenty minutes to make and termed it one of those ideas which simply fall into place. It was beaten by some hands first, with Nas and The Diplomats, and then 50 heard it by Cam’ron’s circle. The song finally found its way to Detroit, where it was mixed and refined by Eminem and Luis Resto.
Digga afterwards jested at 50 that it was his least favourite. Still, the whole point was that this was the slow tempo, he said. “’Many Men’ was meant to breathe against the booming Dre production in the rest of the album. It is a song when your back’s to the wall”, Digga said. “It’s supposed to feel heavy”. It is that burden that has taken it over the years. The song has been described by soldiers and fans and even other artists as having provided them with strength when they most needed it.
As the song fell, so did the video, and it became eternal. The short film directed by Jessy Terrero was a reenactment of the 2000 shooting that almost killed 50 and left him with his signature rasp. The images confused confession and revenge, making him both a victim and a winner. Mekhi Phifer and G-Unit cameos provided it with star power, but the story itself was all grit, a man who survived the impossible.
Many Men was never a big single, but it was one of the most-streamed and quoted songs of the star In 2003, it hit the No. 11 position on the Bubbling Under R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart at Billboard and later it entered the UK Top 70 in the streaming period. The song is now triple Platinum in the US and Platinum in the UK, something incredible considering that the song was initially a mere deep cut.
With time, Many Men has become a blueprint of hip hop that was honoured by 21 Savage and Metro Boomin in their variation on ‘Savage Mode II’. Its cry of mercy was turned into a drill anthem as Pop Smoke used its hook on ‘Got It On Me’. It was later repurposed by Lil Tjay with ‘FACESHOT (Many Men Freestyle)’ when Tjay survived a shooting himself, and Polo G with a song bearing the same title that he borrowed the melody. It was even credited by 50 as “the most influential song of the year in 2020” by Carl Chery of Spotify, who also co-signed the song.
In retrospect, his least popular song in 50 became his most foretelling. ‘Many Men’ had the courage to move slowly in a decade that was obsessed with speed and flash. It made an exchange of atmosphere, bravado of reflection. Now a legend in the annals of rap, what seemed to be an outcast is the most sustainable song in rap history, a tune that showed that power does not necessarily reside in speed, but in soul.