"Look at hip-hop. Name a group! There's no group, period, in hip-hop. So we don't have to convince anyone of our reinvention. The audience needs it to happen. They have nothing else out there. And for G-Unit to be able to physically be here at this point has a lot more significance than people are recognizing." Shank-sharp words from 50 Cent, the architect behind the ambitious, unprecedented ensemble known as G-Unit. His eyes smolder as he gesticulates to enforce his point, being careful to protect the pre-release copy of the fervently-anticipated T.O.S. G-Unit album he carries with him.

Comprising fellow Queens natives Lloyd Banks and Tony Yayo, G-Unit smashed the scene in the early 2000s with a barrage of cataclysmic NYCentric mix tapes. The group redoubled its lockstep in 2003, adding Nashville street soldier Young Buck to its decorated ranks. In November of that same year, with SoundScan still busy tabulating the eight million sales of 50's individual debut Get Rich or Die Tryin', G-Unit unleashed its unflinching opening salvo—Beg for Mercy.

Running both deep and dark, Beg for Mercy rode five anthemic singles to the tune of four million worldwide sales. G-Unit had arrived, mercilessly leaving footprints all over Lloyd Banks' Hunger for More and Young Buck's Straight Outta Ca$hville; in 2005, Tony Yayo's Thoughts of a Predicate Felon; in 2006, Banks' Rotten Apple and Buck's Buck the World. 50 Cent meanwhile churned out chart-toppers The Massacre (2005) and Curtis (2007). And amidst cluttering the calendar with platinum, G-Unit welcomed West Coast wordsmith The Game into their enclave. His 2005 debut The Documentary, largely collaborative with 50 and rife with sing-song singles, cemented the Game's legitimacy as an artist and 50's legacy as a hit-maker. With firm footing on both coasts and a wealth of worldwide support, G-Unit was poised for a decade of dominance.
G-Unit's upcoming release continues the legacy. T.O.S. seethes at even the suspicion of being overlooked or taken for granted. It's a five-alarm blaze of braggadocio, boisterousness, brawn, bounce, and ultimately: brilliance. In 50's words: "The project totally fulfills the appetite of the person who enjoys the content that's been delivered on the street. That but with a hybrid quality, because this project is so sonically correct, and the songs are linked to tell a story and to provide a more elaborate listening experience. It's definitely a task creating G-Unit records because you have more than one creative force involved in making the outline. But together it makes a marriage that completes a perfect puzzle at the end of it." More simply? "What fans should expect is the best record they've heard this year, as an overall body of work." Adds Banks: "You're getting something you never really got before: artists who've all been platinum still coming back to play their roles as part of something larger."

Ubiquitous lead single "I Like the Way She Do It" needs little introduction, with its huge, round bottom (end), searing synth figures, and 50's half-sung hook that spills out of the listener's mouth instinctively. "Straight Outta Southside" is a relentless, double-edged homage: bigging up Southside Jamaica Queens while smacking of N.W.A.'s finest fare. Lloyd Banks sears the opening verse and 50's near-shou

hip-hop's topography. Those footprints, incidentally, bore the pattern of G-Unit's trademark sneakers, the first step in the apparel arsenal launched to announce the group's takeover. 50 Cent and G-Unit were untouchable.

A string of successful solo spin-offs —released on G-Unit— would follow: in 2004, Lloyd Banks' Hunger for More and Young Buck's Straight Outta Ca$hville; in 2005, Tony Yayo's Thoughts of a Predicate Felon; in 2006, Banks' Rotten Apple and Buck's Buck the World. 50 Cent meanwhile churned out chart-toppers The Massacre (2005) and Curtis (2007). And amidst cluttering the calendar with platinum, G-Unit welcomed West Coast wordsmith The Game into their enclave. His 2005 debut The Documentary, largely collaborative with 50 and rife with sing-song singles, cemented the Game's legitimacy as an artist and 50's legacy as a hit-maker. With firm footing on both coasts and a wealth of worldwide support, G-Unit was poised for a decade of dominance.
G-Unit's upcoming release continues the legacy. T.O.S. seethes at even the suspicion of being overlooked or taken for granted. It's a five-alarm blaze of braggadocio, boisterousness, brawn, bounce, and ultimately: brilliance. In 50's words: "The project totally fulfills the appetite of the person who enjoys the content that's been delivered on the street. That but with a hybrid quality, because this project is so sonically correct, and the songs are linked to tell a story and to provide a more elaborate listening experience. It's definitely a task creating G-Unit records because you have more than one creative force involved in making the outline. But together it makes a marriage that completes a perfect puzzle at the end of it." More simply? "What fans should expect is the best record they've heard this year, as an overall body of work." Adds Banks: "You're getting something you never really got before: artists who've all been platinum still coming back to play their roles as part of something larger."

Ubiquitous lead single "I Like the Way She Do It" needs little introduction, with its huge, round bottom (end), searing synth figures, and 50's half-sung hook that spills out of the listener's mouth instinctively. "Straight Outta Southside" is a relentless, double-edged homage: bigging up Southside Jamaica Queens while smacking of N.W.A.'s finest fare. Lloyd Banks sears the opening verse and 50's near-shout cauterizes the conclusion. Elsewhere on the album, look for Swizz Beatz' brassy brand of banger.

But T.O.S. is marked as much by polish as puissance. There's artistry about the album's construction, elegance to the track order, breadth to the material. G-Unit melds old and new with "No Days Off;" a funky, retro bass line befitting a '64 Impala complete with curb feelers bops hydraulically amidst whooshing, spaceship-themed synth effects. The rhymes are terse, almost military-cadenced. Instant riding music on "Kitty Kat," which features Polow Da Don's southern-steeped production and 50 flips an irresistible island-flavored flow over coursing whammy bar-like arpeggios. And "The Piano Man" is a dark, sardonic concept joint overlaid by ratcheting maraca sounds and underpinned by sparse ivory plunking. Tony Yayo opens the cut savagely, calling his work on T.O.S. "the best writing I've ever done." Recall Yayo's history: "When Beg for Mercy came out in 2003, I was incarcerated; I was only on what, 2 songs? I feel like a new artist." As such, understandably he relishes in creative liberties alongside his physical freedom in 2008. "Sometimes in this industry, corporate people try to determine everything: the sound, the order of singles, all that," he fumes. "There's nobody hanging over our shoulders, telling us do this, do that. It's us. There were plenty of nights we didn't sleep, working and thinking on it."

Ultimately, T.O.S. represents the closing of a circle, the onrushing flow after the proverbial ebb. Noting that 2007 was "the year of the good guy," Lloyd Banks forcefully affirms that fans are ready for a return to the raw. "It can't just be a whole album on some happy-go-lucky shit," he maintains. "This is New York, man. By the time you do your Soulja Boy, you done stepped on two or 3 niggas' sneakers. Seriously though, there has to be aggression, there have to be real life situations, and that's what we bring with this album. What do you play when you having a bad day? What do you play when your homey just got smoked? What do you play when the police just pulled you over? You're getting something so real. Our music is gonna return to the level it was in 2002 because the climate is changing."

"The feeling I have now, this hunger, I've never had this feeling before," he continues. "We were in the studio pushing each other. Literally by the time I got a verse done, Yayo would have his verse done. We're damn near fighting to get in the booth. That's what was missing. And it comes from feeling resistance for the first time. I look at it as a blessing, because it's brought us back to where we started. Back to why we made music in the first place and why people took a liking to it. People look at the success part and think it's an accident. I want the fans and the critics to know first off, as much success that we've had, it never overshadowed the love and respect that we've had for the game. The love drives us."

"I'm comfortable being the underdog," Banks forewarns, hinting at the impact G-Unit is about to level on hip-hop's landscape. Again. "But I'm not comfortable being number two. It's two totally different things." Simple, but effective math. Come July 1st, it'll be time to T.O.S.: Terminate On Sight!