The Life of a Hunted Man

50 used a lot of intimidation and strategy to maintain his hold on the strip. During one of his prison stints, he met some thieves from Brooklyn. Back on the strip, he employed them to rob rival Queens hustlers. He'd let the stickup kids keep whatever cash and jewelry they got as long as they gave him all the drugs. Then he gave the stolen drugs to his customers when they bought his crack, as a buy-one-get-one-free deal. This forced his competitors to carry guns, which meant they had to scatter when the cops came. "So they had to come and leave, come and leave," he says. "Consistency is the key to all success. If you can consistently sell crack without the cops comin', you gonna be successful. If you consistently put out quality material in your mix tape, it'll build anticipation for your album."

50's not proud of having sold drugs, but he feels no guilt about it, either. "Guilt?" he asks, a little annoyed. "Hell, no. Guilt for how? Try tellin' a kid that's twelve years old, 'If you do good in school for eight more years, you can have a car.' And let a kid's curiosity lead him through his neighborhood and find somebody who got it in six months on that strip. It don't seem like one of the options, it seem like the only option. I provide for myself by any means. I don't care about how anybody feels about it. 'Cause when I'm doin' it, I really don't have intentions to hurt nobody. I don't expect everybody to understand. But there's people that's from where I'm from that understand."

In the summer of 1994, 50 was arrested twice in three weeks and knew he was headed for death or prison. "It was comin'," he says. "Long as you stay there, you don't beat the odds."

For years he'd been going to friends' basements and rhyming to instrumentals for fun. Now he thought it was time to get away from the drug world and try hip-hop. He knew nothing about constructing songs, but he told himself he would succeed. "Once I focus on something, it gotta work for me," he says. "I won't turn off from it. I convince myself it's gonna work and then no one can convince me that it's not."

In 1996, a friend introduced him to Jam Master Jay, who was then organizing his label, JMJ Records. Jay taught 50 how to structure a song. "Jay knew 50 was the shit," Sha Money says. "He was treating 50 like a big-budget artist." Jay produced 50's first album, but it was never released.