#TBT: G-Unit

From roughly 2002-2006, there was no rap crew more respected and more popular than G-Unit. Comprised of 50 Cent, Lloyd Banks, Tony Yayo, and eventually Young Buck, G-Unit rose to prominence on the strength of their vivid, swaggering, numerous songs about their exploits running the perilous streets of Southside Queens.

This article covers the stretch from G-Unit's debut mixtape 50 Cent Is The Future (released in June 2002) to their debut album Beg For Mercy November 2003). Click through the gallery to listen to 10 defining tracks from that period.

I'm from the streets, man! G-G-G G-G-G G-Unit!!!

The most enduring track from 50 Cent Is The Future, "Bad News" features a bounding Nina Simone sample and offers a case study in the G-Unit members various styles: Banks, the smooth criminal, Yayo, the trigger-happy enforcer, and 50, the charismatic hooksmith and frontman.

Though the earlier G-Unit tapes featured 50 Cent's name, Banks was liable to takeover, like Westbrook telling Durant to step aside. On "Banks Workout," 50 happily passes the mic to his teammate and gasses him up with enthusiastic ad-libs.

G-Unit made No Mercy, No Fear after signing a $1 million deal with Aftermath, and "Soldier" is one of the tape's two nods to The Eminem Show. G-Unit utilizes the *gun reload* sound effect about as frequently as Desiigner utilizes his *firing machine gun* ad-lib.

Little did he know when he recorded God's Plan standout "You're Not Ready," a remix of the Kanye West-produced Beanie Sigel track "The Truth," 50 Cent would engage Kanye in an epic first-week sales battle five years later when Curtis and Graduation dropped on the same day. (Kanye won.)

Of the 25 G-Unit radio mixtapes released between 2002 and 2007, G-Unit Radio 1: Smokin Day 2 was arguably the best, partly because it is basically a G-Unit-Snoop Dogg joint tape.

"Damn near every rapper gotta hot 16, well my flow's like a ho that's 16." - Yayo

"Right Thurr" (Remix)

This song is included on this list for two reasons: one, because it is representative of the G-Unit Radio series, which was largely comprised of remixes of the hottest songs du jour, and because it is a part of Lebron James-hosted G-Unit Radio 3: Takin’ It To The Streets, which begins with 18-year-old Lebron yelling, “G-Unit Radio in your motherfucking mouth!"

G-Unit's debut album Beg For Mercy sold 377,000 copies in its first week, which offers some perspective on the group's popularity at the time. (Get Rich or Die Tryin', released nine months earlier, sold 872,000 copies in its first week.) Impossibly smooth "Wanna Get To Know You" is probably the best song on the album and harkens back to a time when Joe was one of the hottest R&B singers in the game.

Tony Yayo was sent to jail on gun charges early into the Beg For Mercy sessions and thus only appears on two songs on the album. Fortunately, the recently signed Young Buck was available to slide in and inject G-Unit with some Southern flavor.

It ain't hard to tell that "Poppin Them Thangs" is produced by Dr. Dre and piano maestro Scott Storch.

Banks takes centerstage on "Smile," which features the slick, soulful, possibly Teddy Pendergrass-sampling guitar prevalent in early '00s production. Banks, usually unafraid to kick would-be lovers to the curb, details his crush on the same girl that has lasted over a decade.

The music video for villainous Beg For Mercy lead single "Stunt 101" is a master class is in showing up the opposition: a disorienting flurry of jewelry, flashing police lights, cash floating through the air and/or in the washing machine, and Jevon Kearse jerseys.

The Cookin Soul remix is also great.