Someone crawled out of the back and came up on 50's left with a gun cocked. "Sneaky motherfucker, man," 50 says. "He did it right. He just didn't finish." The man hit him with nine shots at close range. 50 took bullets in the hand ("shell hit my thumb and came out my pinky"), the hip ("that one hurt-hurt"), the calf and the chest, and one to the face went through his left cheek and into his mouth.
"You don't actually feel each one hit you," he says. "The adrenaline is pumping. You movin' and tryin' to get out of the way. I was bouncing around the back seat. We pulled off. We got a block or so. We had to pull over to get rid of the tote [gun]. Threw it in the sewer, then we got to the hospital. But I was up and still talking the whole time." A few weeks later, the gunman was murdered. 50 denies responsibility.
He spent 13 days in hospital, then staggered out on a walking frame. Six weeks later, he began walking on his own. Now life was more precious to him. He began working on his body with endless push-ups, pull-ups and sit-ups.
But, more importantly, there was now a large, squarish hole through the left side of his lower jaw and a piece of bullet in his tongue. He'd lost a bottom tooth and a U-shaped chunk of his gums, but his lazy tongue and the hole in his jaw gave him a slur like no one in hip-hop. "There's a different sound now when I talk, cos of the air around the tooth," 50 says. "Gettin' shot just totally fixed my instrument."
The story of the shooting of 50 Cent spread throughout hip-hop and made him seem mythical, unkillable. But as soon as Columbia heard, it dropped him. "I wasn't sure if the industry was ever going to embrace me again," he says.
In January 2001, he began spending every day at Sha Money XL's studio, making songs for the underground mix-CD world. He released five albums within months, flooding the market as no MC ever had. "I thought, 'This dude got shot, got back up and is still poppin' shit?'" says Eminem. "He came back stronger than ever. That made me stop."
Back in the hotel room, it's almost morning, and 50's still telling stories, first about when Foxy Brown came to visit him in the hospital, then about an old friend with such bad luck he got arrested almost every time he left home. It's almost time to leave, so he slips on his bulletproof vest and begins pulling the straps tight.
"Niggas out there sellin' drugs are after what I got from rappin'," he says.
Everyone turns when the mother of his son holds up a tailor-made, kiddie-size navy-blue bulletproof vest that her son will wear on stage this summer at his father's shows. There's something cute and funny about it, but no one laughs.
• Get Rich or Die Tryin' is out now on Shady/Interscope.