The one rapper 50 Cent wanted to sample his songs: “It was time to do my records over”
Rap is a territorial place to be. Defending one’s area is as usual to superstars as it is to those on the streets. Whether it’s about particular nightclubs or beatmakers, rappers are usually somewhat confrontational with other stars who want to step on their toes. This feeling certainly extends to the kind of rapper 50 Cent has always shown himself to be.
Known for being a hard man on the mic and off it, 50 has long been considered one of the toughest performers in the hip-hop world. As such, the idea that someone might sample his song and take it in a new direction might have seemed like a suicide mission. However, one rapper was given safe passage by Fif.
Perhaps even more impressive was that the rapper didn’t even have to ask 50 Cent for the privilege; the NYC icon instead suggested that his song ‘Many Men’ was now at the right time to be sampled. The rapper in question was the late Pop Smoke and his track ‘Got It On Me’.
The tragic story of Pop Smoke still feels raw to this day. The Brooklyn drill rapper exploded onto the scene with his gritty voice and raw energy. His 2019 breakout hit, ‘Welcome to the Party,’ became the anthem of a new wave of New York hip-hop. With his mixtapes Meet the Woo and Meet the Woo 2, Pop Smoke quickly ascended to rap royalty, blending drill beats with melodic hooks.
Tragically, his life was cut short at just 20, but his influence lives on. His posthumous debut album, Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon, solidified his legacy, inspiring a generation of artists. Smoke’s career was bright from the very start and 50 Cent recognised the talent he had at his disposal and offered him the chance to sample one of his own biggest hits.
“When I met [Pop Smoke], I told him, it was time to do my records over,” 50 Cent told Billboard. “Those [first two albums of mine] are [from] ’03 and ’05. If there’s something that struck a chord in you and it’s dope, the new artist is supposed to use that or make their version of it.” Hip-hop often seems entirely geared towards creating new material, but here, 50 makes reference to how uniquely the genre and its artists manage to both evolve and pay tirbute to the past through sampling.
50 may have been more willing to share his content with Pop Smoke, real name Bashar Jackson, because of their unique similarities. “I didn’t even realize his [last] name was Jackson,” 50, real name Curtis Jackson, said “[He even had] the same bucky-*ss teeth that I had before I fixed them.”
It went further than that too. When 50 emerged on the scene, he delivered a range of hardcore, aggressive songs that had not hit the mainstream before. This also aligned with Smoke’s output: You can hear the drill music and aggression,” 50 said. “[Pop] wasn’t showing his abilities to do things different musically. And then, he broke out of that after those first two tapes to create the music that he was creating at those times.”
Sadly, what could have been for Pop Smoke will never be known, however, his legacy will live on regardless.