Get Rich or Die Tryin'

Released on 6 February 2003 by Interscope, G-Unit, Shady and Aftermath, with Dr. Dre and Eminem as executive producers. Sha Money XL, who also executive produced, supplied the title: it began as a tattoo on his arm. Additional production came from Mike Elizondo, Mr. Porter, Rockwilder, Dirty Swift, Megahertz and others, and the guests were Eminem, Young Buck, Nate Dogg, Lloyd Banks and Tony Yayo. Recording took place at several studios, among them Encore in Burbank and Chung King Studios and The Hit Factory in New York City. 50 Cent had recorded some of the material in Westbury, Long Island, and kept the songs he was most impressed by for the album. He recorded seven tracks in five days with Dre, among them In da Club. Wanksta, from the 8 Mile soundtrack, was added as a bonus track, and Back Down was an instrumental first meant for Rakim's Aftermath album.

Dre objected to 21 Questions, asking how he could be gangsta and then put a sappy love song on the record. 50 Cent said he was two people, and that it was not diversity but necessity. The cover shows him shirtless behind a broken pane of glass, designed by Julian Alexander and Sacha Waldman. Waldman said the glass was a real sheet that had been shot at with a real gun. Of the title, 50 Cent said that to a working-class person it means being determined.

Sales and reception

It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with 872,000 copies in its first week and sold another 822,000 in its second. Billboard reported eight weeks at the top of the R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. It was the best-selling album of 2003 in the US and the number-one album on the Billboard year-end chart. The RIAA certified it nine times platinum in 2020. It won favorite rap/hip-hop album at the 2003 American Music Awards and was nominated for best rap album at the 46th Grammys. Rolling Stone ranked it number 280 on its 2020 list of the 500 greatest albums, and it appears in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

Metacritic gives it 73 out of 100. Christian Hoard of Rolling Stone called it a great record in 2003 and heard dark synth grooves, buzzy keyboards and a persistently funky bounce. Alexis Petridis of the Guardian found his slurred delivery distinctive and original, and named Many Men the stand-out track. Pitchfork was cooler, writing that for most of the album he wallows in the genre's cliches, though it called the bounce on In da Club irresistible. Billboard wrote in 2013 that he had re-written the hip-hop rulebook. In a 2023 interview 50 Cent said Magic Stick, written in the same period, was meant for the record.