The beat for 50 Cent's "Many Men" was a “Nas track first”
Nas's former A&R Lenny "Linen" Nicholson says Nas recorded on the Digga beat, then lost interest. With his blessing, it went to 50.
One of the darkest songs on Get Rich or Die Tryin' almost belonged to someone else. In an interview for Mass Appeal's oral history of Nas's The Lost Tapes, his former A&R Lenny "Linen" Nicholson said the beat for "Many Men (Wish Death)" started as a Nas record.
“50's song 'Many Men' was a Nas track first. He actually vocalled it.”
— Lenny "Linen" Nicholson, to Mass Appeal (2017)
According to Nicholson, he played the Darrell "Digga" Branch beat for Nas during the God's Son sessions. At the time, Nas was developing Nashawn, who would lay vocals on tracks to try to impress Nas. Nas never finished it. "That was a track that he just fell out of love with," Nicholson said.
With Nas's blessing, Nicholson passed the beat to 50 Cent, who was on the same Columbia roster then. "At that time 50 was looking for something just to stay busy and to keep writing," he recalled. "I gave it to 50, and it turned into 'Many Men.'"
- Song
- Many Men (Wish Death)
- Album
- Get Rich or Die Tryin' · Feb 6, 2003
- Producers
- Digga (Darrell Branch), Eminem, Luis Resto (add.)
- Sample
- Tavares, "Out of the Picture"
- RIAA
- Gold, June 2006
50 wrote it from the experience of being shot nine times in Queens on May 24, 2000. The Jessy Terrero video recreates that shooting. Eminem and Sha Money XL spent a week or two mixing the record, and Luis Resto added guitar. The soul is underneath it all: Digga built the beat on the piano and strings of Tavares' 1975 R&B ballad "Out of the Picture."
It was never an official single, only a promo, but it went Gold anyway. Nas vocals on that beat: do you want to hear them, or is it 50's forever?
