50 Cent kicked in the door. Now it’s up to his homies Lloyd Banks, Young Buck and Tony Yayo to follow him to hip-hop’s promised land. Forever grinding, G-Unit is out to prove there’s strength in numbers, muthafuckas.

“ How hard do you hustle?”

It’s February 27, 2003.

Exactly three weeks since 50 Cent’s debut album Get Rich Or Die Tryin’ first took hip-hop hostage, and only a couple of hours after the beefed-up crack-dealer-turned-MTV-star left a Delco Center crowd of several thousand in rap-fueled hysteria.
The show’s over, but 50’s own excitement is just beginning. Backstage, chopping it up with the headliner of the tour he just sweated for, 50 listens, takes in some advice.
“I think you got it right now,” says Master P. “I think you’re gonna sell 10 million records.” The New Orleans rap don pauses, puts on his game face. “But I sold 75 million records in my career. How hard do you hustle?”

Before 50 can reply with one of his smirk-wrapped retorts, P makes sure his words are understood: “I see you hustlin’, but how hard do you hustle?”

Fast forward. October 4, 2003. Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Europe’s version of post-Pandora paradise. A city where the water fountains in the public parks might as well dispense alcoholic beverages; where marijuana-stocked “coffeeshops” are more popular than McDonald’s; and home to the world-famous Red Light District, where blocks and blocks of glass-door storefronts reveal hundreds of real-life mannequins ready and willing to be your own personal sex genie. For a price, of course. But it’s all legal. This, the planet’s number-one-ranked Sin City, is today’s stop on G-Unit’s European tour.

On a rainy Saturday night, 50 and a 10-man crew—mostly comprised of longtime homies from his Jamaica, Queens neighborhood—visit one of Amsterdam’s elite social spots, Supperclub. Despite the establishment’s infamous at-least-two-weeks-in-advance reservation policy, G-Unit, along with a sprinkling of Interscope Records and Violator Management personnel, mosey into the cozy, all-white dining room and make themselves comfortable on the rows of plush mattresses that line the east and west walls (think Miami’s Club Bed). With his beaming white socks on full display (no shoes allowed on the bed), 50 appears comfortable in such surroundings.

“ These are the places I can come,” says the former menace to society, stretching out into full lounge mode. “And people won’t bother me. Because they’re used to seeing [famous] people all the time.”

Thirty-six hundred miles from New York City, as he discusses the crazy rap life he lives today, a dual-sided truth becomes apparent: 50 Cent may not be as powerful as he thinks. (“I control everything,” he says nonchalantly. “Everything that happens is because of me.”) But he’s more powerful than you think.

In 2003, Nas’ old “Whose world is this?” would’ve been a dumb question. Selling over six million copies in a down market, Get Rich Or Die Tryin’ dominated the charts like no other album. In May, 50 had eight songs in regular rotation on radio and/or MTV (six were from Get Rich...). Capitalizing on marketing skills honed during his years as a street hustler—and starting, really, in 2002, with his independently-released mixtapes—50 offered his fans more than just his own charismatic starpower. He gave them a brand, G-Unit, that they can take part in, sign up for, pledge allegiance to. (Think Wu-Tang in the mid-’90s, or Master P’s No Limit soldiers.) Then he used himself as the lead promoter. To say the least, it worked: rap’s Mr. Monopoly claims to have grossed $40 million in 2003. “Those accomplishments seem minor now,” he says, shrugging it off just as quickly. “’Cause I already switched over [to a higher financial class]. I’m looking to do at least a hundred million next year.”

It doesn’t seem that outlandish. 50’s horizons keep expanding. The G-Unit sneaker, made by Reebok, is set for imminent launch, joining G-Unit clothing in department stores nationwide. Plus upcoming G-Unit vitamins, movies, books... As the female voice on 50’s voicemail message says, “The list goes on and on.”

As any Business 101 class will make clear, diversification is key. But there’s no branch of G-Unit more important to 50 than his artists: Lloyd Banks, Tony Yayo and Young Buck (all signed to G-Unit Records, of course). And it’s only right. The Gorilla Unit isn’t your typical rapper’s entourage; they’re the reason that 50 is the superstar he is today. Every chapter in the 50 Cent story has had them inked.

Lloyd Banks is currently higher than your light bill. It’s 10 o’clock, and the gang has fled the Supperclub in search of some decent food (not an easy thing to find in Amsterdam). After relocating to the city’s version of an “Italian Restaurant,” the marijuana-blitzed 21-year-old isn’t satisfied. His eyes are on the Pizza Hut across the street. Slyly getting an Interscope staffer’s attention, the baby of the crew lets his desires be known. Ten minutes later, a pizza box is delivered to the table.
Banks (born Christopher Lloyd) knows what he wants. Beyond his years lyrically, the self-proclaimed “Boy Wonder” has been steadily showered with hood praise for his stellar mixtape appearances. “The niggas that I grew up listening to disappoint me now,” he says. “It’s to the point where I’m like, ‘Man, fuck how long I’ve been in the game—y’all niggas just been in here bullshittin’.’”

Post-pizza, sitting at the head of the Last Supper-long dinner table, Banks looks about ready to nod off into the empty box. On his right, however, Young Buck is just getting started. Ignoring a cold saucer of noodles, the 22-year-old MC talks excitedly about the night’s next stop, the Green House coffeeshop. His voice, along with a sculpted sideburns-to-goatee and a grill full of gold teeth, makes it evident that the newest addition to G-Unit ain’t from Queens. Formerly affiliated with Cash Money Records and Juvenile’s crew UTP, David “Young Buck” Brown was born and raised down South—Nashville, Tennessee, to be exact.

“ 50 got my attention back when he did ‘How To Rob,’” he says. “Where I’m from in the South, you don’t get accepted for nothing you saying if you’re really not about that.”
According to 50, Buck’s entry into G-Unit was the result of some rap-world funny business. Early last year, with the squad anointed by Shady/Aftermath, and Banks building a catalog of quotable punch lines longer than a giraffe’s neck, G-Unit was clearly becoming the hottest property in the game.

“ [While Buck was still with Juvenile] he played a record for me and it was dope,” says 50. “I wanted to say something to him, but I didn’t want to be disrespectful to Juvenile. I think that’s disrespectful, to invite someone into your house and make propositions. But later on, I found out that Juvenile had [propositioned] Banks. Because I heard it, and it wasn’t from Banks, I had an attitude. Banks was supposed to tell me right away. So I said, ‘Yo, son, you wanna go with Juvenile? I’ll let you go right now.’”

To prove he wasn’t playing, 50 dialed up his lawyer, in front of Banks, and instructed him to immediately draw up release papers for his young MC. Of course, Banks let it be known that there was no confusion as to whose team he wanted to play for. And 50, feeling less need to respect Juvie’s territory, called Young Buck and invited him up to New York.

[Refusing direct comment, and through a spokesperson, Juvenile says that’s not how it went down.]

As most folks know, due to the popular “Free Yayo” T-shirt campaign, there’s a G-Unit member missing from this trip. Twenty-five-year-old Marvin Bernard, better known as Tony Yayo, has been incarcerated since New Year’s Eve for weapons charges and prior warrants. He’s serving his time at Monterey Shock Incarceration Correctional Facility, the same upstate New York program 50 endured in place of his three-to-nine. So the man who put in so much guts on the front end—through the crack days and 50’s 2000 shooting, to the mixtape hustle and the studio fight with Murder Inc.—has missed the majority of the glory. And nobody misses him more than his boys.
“ Yayo,” says Banks, puffing on a billy-club-sized joint (for real) within the velvety confines of the coffeeshop. “He kind of, like, put me in the position where I’m at. Like, ‘Son, this is what’s going to pop, fuck with us.’

“ Honestly,” he continues, “before Yayo got locked up, he was my motivation. Like, we not the smartest in the world. All of us left high school. But Yayo, when he rhymes, he’s the smartest nigga. ’Cause the things he say, I be like, ‘Nigga, do you watch The History Channel or some shit? You out on the block with us, how the hell did you know that?’”

By all accounts, Yayo is handling his bid fine. (50 says he’s looking at a release in December, a few weeks after G-Unit’s album Beg For Mercy is scheduled to drop.) And you know, brushes with the law are nothing new to anyone in G-Unit.

Banks was born in Baltimore, while his pops, a consistent criminal, was on the run. His family moved to Southside when he turned six. Since senior spent most of junior’s childhood either on the lam or in the pen, there wasn’t a lot of opportunity for bonding. When he was able to carve out some quality time, it wasn’t always so quality—pops didn’t exactly show his firstborn the finer things in life. “I seen my first [murder] when I was 10 years old,” Banks says solemnly. “In front of my eyes, nigga got shot three times in the head. That was one of my father’s closest friends.”

While Banks was catching his first sight of burners and blood, Buck was in Nashville, selling crack to his old man. “I probably sold my first pieces of crack to my father,” says an emotionless Buck, having hustled since age 13. “That’s because I would rather see myself selling it to him and getting the money, than watching one of my friends selling it to him and getting the money.”

Needless to say, Buck’s relationship with his father has been, in his own words, “fucked up” for years. Recently, though, the situation got even worse. “Just before I turned 22,” he says, shaking his head, “my mama had little snickers like, ‘I don’t know if he’s really your father.’ I’m a dark-complexioned dude, and the guy who says he’s my father isn’t. But [as we go through] the process of trying to see if he’s my father, he’s seeing all the success. And the first thing that come out his mouth is, ‘Let me hold something.’ I don’t even accept his phone calls right now. He’s leaving crazy messages and everything.”