Just two months after he set the record for the best selling first week ever for a debut artist with Get Rich or Die Tryin’ (Shady/Aftermath/Interscope, 2003), Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson launches G Unit Records, his own boutique record label to be distributed by Interscope Records. The label’s early roster consists of 50 and his friends from Queens, NY, Tony Yayo and Lloyd Banks, collectively G Unit. In November, the label drops its first album, G Unit’s Beg For Mercy (G Unit/Interscope, 2003), which sells close to 400, 000 copies in one week, and eventually clocks in at double platinum.
For the next three years, G Unit keeps the Billboard charts in a stranglehold with platinum albums from Lloyd Banks, The Hunger For More (G Unit/Interscope, 2004), and former Cash Money rapper Young Buck, Straight Outta Ca$hville (G Unit/Interscope, 2004). Another double platinum effort from West Coast superstar-in-the-making The Game The Documentary (Aftermath/G Unit/Interscope, 2005) solidifies G Unit as the dominant hip hop label of the early aughts, allowing 50 Cent to diversify his lucrative empire into movies, book publishing (G Unit Books) and a portfolio of multi-million dollar endorsement deals.
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