The Life of a Hunted Man

In 1999, 50 moved on to Columbia Records, where he recorded another album, Power of a Dollar, which included the underground classic "How to Rob," in which he describes mugging a slew of rap and R&B stars and lays out who 50 Cent is: the fearless and funny thug who's just a minute off the street. The song exploded on the hip-hop underground and on the radio. 50 had always admired how KRS-One had roared into hip-hop behind a dis record ("South Bronx"). Now he'd done the same.

One night in a club, 50 said "What's up?" to a man he knew who happened to have stolen a chain from Ja Rule. Ja saw 50 talking to the man and felt disrespected. Thus began a feud. "Wanksta" and a slew of records dissing Ja and Murder Inc. head Irv Gotti followed. Things got physical one day in Atlanta. Ja and 50 were staying in the same hotel, and when 50 saw Ja, he pulled him aside to talk. "He was lookin' real stupid," 50 says. "He had one of them little bats they give you at the baseball games for your kids. He had the li'l-tough look on his face." Their talk didn't last long. "I let him go on for about a minute or two, and then I just punched him in his eye. I heard enough of that shit."

50 says anger is his most familiar emotion. "Somethin' happen that another person might start crying about, I get mad. Some people know how to express themselves emotionally and cry and do all that other shit. Me, emotionally, I'm, like, thirteen."

Months after the Atlanta fight, in a scuffle with Ja Rule's crew at the Manhattan recording studio the Hit Factory, 50 was stabbed, though not seriously. (Charges were dismissed.) But while the Ja Rule beef merely got people talking about 50, he gained respect when Jay-Z responded to being dissed in "How to Rob" by saying, "I'm about a dollar/What the fuck is 50 Cent?" on "It's Hot (Some Like It Hot)," from Volume 3 . . . The Life and Times of S. Carter.

"When he responded, I was complimented," 50 says. "He wouldn't say nothing back to somebody he didn't think was hot. I never went to radio until after he said that about me. I don't know if my career would be where it's at if he didn't respond."