Samples and Interpolations
Trivia
- “Many Men” was recorded before signed with Shady/Aftermath and was set aside for a future major-label project. Once signed, it was revisited with additional production and mixing from Eminem.
- The song’s beat was first given to The Diplomats, who recorded over it before passing on it. It was then given to , who also recorded over it. 50 Cent heard the beat during one of Nas’s sessions and obtained a copy to record his own version. Nas ultimately passed on the beat, allowing 50 Cent to hold it for his album — had Nas released his version, 50 would have likely used it on a mixtape instead.
- Although the song received a music video, it was not released as a single. Instead, the song was released on the B-side of the “21 Questions” vinyl single.
Words from 50 Cent and Digga
““Many Men” was my least favorite at that point because, musically we was in the boom-bap phase. We was in that hard-hitting intensity, and it’s the slowest song on Get Rich Or Die Tryin’. And it’s now the tempo that the artists are rapping to. So the fast tempo, hard-hitting beats, that was that era, that time period. And the whole album had it.
“I created the beat probably two or three years before it was released on an album. This was around the time we started putting together Dipset. That was actually one of the first tracks we started working on for the first Dipset album. It had Cam, Jim [Jones] and Juelz [Santana] on it. We made tracks and it didn’t really move so then I tried to get some tracks to Nas. He was working on his album and the Bravehearts album. He picked two tracks and that was one of them. Nas recorded to it and one of the Bravehearts. 50 was in a Nas session and he heard the track and he heard the track and liked it. He got Lenny Nicholson, the A&R at Sony at the time, to give him a copy so he would write to it.
I didn’t even pay attention to who the artist was at the time. I was focused on making beats for the Dipset album. It was just finding the sample and trying to make one of the grimiest New York beats possible. I was always thinking of Havoc and Mobb Deep. Just being dark. I was intentionally not trying to sample the main parts of records.
I heard the final song over the phone. Sha played it for me over the phone and then I heard the final in my lawyer’s office. It was exactly what I wanted it to be, as far as having that gritty, dirty type feeling. Luis Resto was one of Em’s producers and he played the guitars at the very end of the track.