100 Greatest Songs of the 00’s #73 50 Cent – In Da Club

Released: 2003

It doesn’t always have to be clever. It doesn’t always have to be complicated. It doesn’t always have to be cool. Rap’s place in pop had been cemented in the previous decade, but even by the time the noughties came round nobody had done it like Eminem before. After the Marshall Mathers LP confirmed his star status he turned some of his attention to talent spotting for Dr.Dre’s Aftermath organisation.

How he discovered 50 Cent’s Guess Who’s Back mixtape is open to debate, as is whether Fiddy was either considering quitting the game or just about to break regardless; such is the hip-hop world, in which there are always multiple truths. What is true is that in June of 2002 he signed a deal to work with the Shady label, in the process picking up a million dollar advance, and despite the beef-plagued rap landscape, the two have remained friends since.

In Da Club came from a first session with Dre at the controls, a partnership which would also create the newly minted rapper’s debut album Get Rich or Die Tryin’. It was a track that sounded like it was by a guy who’d just made a million bucks, all cocaine bumps and celebratory bounce from the other side of the VIP rope. It was none of those things mentioned at the beginning, but that was most of the reasons why it was so good.