50 Cent/G-Unit

Ask anyone vaguely versed in pop music to finish the phrase "We're gonna party like it's . . ." and they'll respond with "your birthday!" and a smile. A sly, slurred chorus from the smash 50 Cent single "In da Club," it alerted the mainstream to the inescapable arrival of the greatest gang banger-turned-rap star since Snoop Dogg.

The continued success of 50 Cent since his 2003 shotgun blast to the charts is beyond amazing: it's practically unheard of in a scene of warring egos and here-today-gone-tomorrow hit-makers. Take a journey through 50 Cent and G-Unit's platinum-encrusted rise, with grave-robbing rubber-ball jams featuring Biggie and 2Pac.

Focus too much on the scars and survived gunshots of 50 Cent, and you just might overlook the lavish work of his roll-deep crew, G-Unit, and radio-melting solo members like Lloyd Banks and Tony Yayo. "My Buddy" quotes Pacino and samples side arms, and "Thou Shall" pulls pages from gospel and the hardest of hardcore hip-hop.

50 Cent and his posse, G-Unit, were franchise players from the moment "Fiddy" dropped his debut for the joint Eminem/Dr. Dre imprints Shady/Aftermath. Get Rich or Die Tryin' quickly bypassed the expiration date suggestion of its title by shifting 872,000 copies in five days — the fastest-selling debut ever, according to SoundScan. A veritable empire followed, from the solo albums of Tony Yayo, Young Buck, and Lloyd Banks to the G-Unit stamp of street storytelling, and a much-needed revival of hardcore icons Mobb Deep.