Empires rise and fall throughout history. Victory can be achieved through planning, execution, and luck, but you have to keep an eye out for your goals, because if you reach too far, you may fall into defeat. This idea can be applied not only to historical empires, but also to the rap game.

The rap game is much like the world of politics and business. Rap labels are businesses trying to rise to power through various business moves and marketing plots to be visible to the public as successful. Image is everything in the world of hip-hop, and if you appear to be big and get enough people to believe you, the sky is the limit. Every 5 years or so, you see a label that is pretty much either top 2 or undisputed number 1 in terms of power, influence, and popularity.

A great example of success would be Death Row Records during the time of 2Pac, Snoop Dogg, and Dr. Dre. They had an all-star roster of rappers and producers that made hit records. The label produced stars and was visible through media outlets, but this success couldn’t last forever. Eventually Suge Knight’s bully tactics would be his downfall. The death of 2Pac, Dr. Dre fleeing the label, and Snoop Dogg leaving for No Limit would signal an end of an era in hip hop. Before their downfall, the West coast ran hip-hop and the East-West coast beef was reality instead of history.

Similarly, No Limit and Master P had their run when the southern movement started taking over, and No Limit sold their fair share of records. This laid the groundwork for the southern movement today and the indie route of selling records. Despite years of success, over saturation brought No Limit and Master P back down to earth and left the top spot open for a new top dog.

In the early 2000’s, 50 Cent started his rise to fame and power in the rap game with his buzz building ability through mixtapes in the New York mixtape circuit. 50 Cent and G Unit were the new crew rising to popularity, and even Eminem was a fan. Eminem loved 50 Cent’s mixtapes and he loved G Unit’s style. Eminem even went out on a limb to sign 50 Cent to his Shady Records imprint, and allowed 50 Cent to sign Lloyd Banks and Tony Yayo to his own G Unit Records label under the Interscope umbrella.

It is evident that this power move made by 50 Cent to align himself with Eminem caused him to acquire the coveted white fanbase that belonged to Eminem. 50 Cent soon rose to power and his influence alone caused his album to go multiplatinum and have all of his G Unit releases go platinum. G Unit was the most visible group in the world, with global touring, nonstop music video coverage, radio play 24/7, etc. The end of this era was signaled with the awful release of Tony Yayo’s Thoughts of a Predicate Felon album. This album was harmful in two ways; it was a very weak album since Tony Yayo seemed overhyped by the group and underskilled in comparsion, and it didn’t sell as well as previous G Unit releases. There was finally a dent in G Unit’s armor…was this the end of G Unit?

After more releases and buzz, 50 Cent noticed that his G Unit empire that he built up was slowly breaking down. New York hip-hop wasn’t selling anymore; so neither were the G Unit soldiers. Even Young Buck wasn’t selling well for being a southern rapper (supposed to be a benefit during this time). Ex-member The Game hurt the group’s reputation by lyrically assaulting the entire group on a 15-minute diss track. The Unit made several half-assed attempts to diss back, but none were quite as effective. Many argue that Game won the lyrical battle, while 50 is still more successful financially. 50 Cent started resorting to beefing with rappers just to get attention, but this was a short term fix because it was predictable and the public lost interest more quickly as time passed. Most recently, he has reignited his beef with Bronx turned Miami rapper Fat Joe.

50 Cent recently dropped his album Curtis, and used a marketing scheme by starting a contest/beef with Kanye West to see who would sell more records. Both sides subtly admit that the contest was a gimmick to build up record sales for BOTH artists and even though it was competitive, no one was going to get physically hurt. Curtis didn’t do poorly in comparison to other rap albums in this time period, but it didn’t go platinum right away like past G Unit releases. More importantly, it got beat convincingly by Kanye West’s Graduation album, which released on the same day. 50 Cent later went on to admit in an interview that Curtis was a “dud” but still managed to sell a lot of copies. The real question now: How will G Unit get back on top of the rap game?

The south is mostly what’s on the airwaves… southern rappers are what’s mostly on television… and ringtone rappers are making more money than they would from album sales. How would 50 Cent solve his problem and combat his worsening situation? You know for sure 50 Cent will not go down without a fight…so he has to figure out a way to go around his label politics and make him visible in a different way. His solution? The Internet.

The Internet is 50 Cent’s new way to promote himself because he can use his website to update his already built up fan base with videos, free mixtapes, and exclusive news. If BET and MTV won’t play 50 Cent’s videos, he’ll find a way for you to see them himself. Not only that, but he has reported that G Unit has been endlessly working on tracks in his studio like they used to do when they were a young and hungry group. Making music isn’t even like a job anymore, and is more like fun, so the material turns out higher quality and higher volume. This mixtape material gives them that extra buzz they need in the streets to keep the G Unit name from fading into the history books. Could this be their comeback?

Keep in mind, this worked great for him because he was already famous, and making a web based move like him would be MUCH more difficult if hew as still the small time rapper from Queens. No other label has successfully come back from being the top group for half a decade. After their time is up, a popular label usually fades into the background to let someone new take their spot. What’s different now is 50 Cent’s hustle never dies, and it’ll be interesting to see what he decides to do next in his career.