Image: Rolling Stone
In 2007, you would actually pit 50 Cent and Kanye West up against each other. Take a moment to let that sink in...
Ok, you good?
It's 2017 now and Kanye has gone on to be a creative visionary while 50 has declared bankruptcy and struggled to clock any hits, basically since his 2007 record Curtis.
10 years ago though, 50 and Yeezy released their respective albums Curtis and Graduation on the same day, battling it out for the number one spot in the US.
The feud was a proper hip-hop feud. It wasn't about personality, it was about music and they went head-to-head in the most literal of ways, even covering Rolling Stone together.
It became even more of a serious battle when 50 declared to RS that he would stop declaring solo records if Kanye beat him.
"When I picked that date, I was like, 'People are going to talk about this so much,'" Kanye said at the time about the battle.
"Do you know how great this shit is for hip-hop?"
He was confident that he was going to take out the spot too. His single Stronger was doing well while 50 had struggled to really get records off the ground that year.
When the numbers came out, the inevitable happened. Kanye sold 960K while 50 trailed behind with 690K. Both huge numbers but Yeezy had come out on top. Looking back with hindsight now, Graduation has also had the longest lasting effect, introducing electronica into hip-hop and potentially changing the face of the genre forever.
50 graciously lost saying, "This marks a great moment for hip-hop music, one that will go down in history.” Kanye on the other hand remarked, “To be a champion, you’ve got to take out a champion.”
Needless to say, 50 didn't retire, although he never released an album again with first-week numbers that good so maybe he should've.
Here's a bonus piece of info too, Kanye's favourite song on the record when it released was Flashing Lights.
