| Many Men (Wish Death) | |
| Cover: | 50 Cent- Many Men.jpg |
| Type: | promo |
| Artist: | 50 Cent |
| Album: | Get Rich or Die Tryin' |
| Released: | May 6, 2003 |
| A-Side: | "21 Questions" |
| Recorded: | 2002 |
| Genre: | Gangsta rap |
| Length: | 4:16 |
| Label: | |
"Many Men (Wish Death)" is a song by American rapper 50 Cent from his debut album Get Rich or Die Tryin' (2003). The song was produced by Darrell "Digga" Branch, and Luis Resto.[1] Despite the song charting and having a music video, it was only released as a promotional single.
The video was directed by Jessy Tererro and produced by Jill Hardin and Darrell "Digga" Branch.[2] The song's music video is about 50 Cent's shooting from May 24, 2000, when he was shot nine times in Queens, New York. Mekhi Phifer appears in the video as 50's hitman. Adam Rodriguez and Rory Cochrane, both stars of at the time of production, appear as detectives. Gabriel Casseus appears as a person who is allied with the person that shoots 50 Cent. Tommy Lister appears as one of 50 Cent's associates. G-Unit members Lloyd Banks and Young Buck make cameo appearances.[3]
The music video on YouTube has received over 500 million views as of March 2024.[4]
The song peaked at number 11 on the US Bubbling Under R&B/Hip-Hop Singles in 2003.[5] On June 14, 2006, "Many Men" was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), for selling 500,000 copies in the United States of America.[6] On January 19, 2023, it was certified three times platinum by the RIAA, indicating 3 million copies sold.[7] While the song was a commercial success, 50 Cent commented in an interview years later the song was his least favorite in Get Rich or Die Tryin, largely in part to it being the slowest song of the album.
American rapper Pop Smoke interpolated the song on his 2020 track, "Got It on Me",[8] and producer Metro Boomin sampled the song on his and 21 Savage's 2020 track "Many Men".[9]
Vietnamese-American writer Ocean Vuong repeatedly references the song in his novel On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous. As Vuong explained in an interview, "50 Cent's song was ubiquitous in the early aughts, where so much of this book takes place. It also marked the last era of gangsta rap, whose cultural framework provided men and boys a means of performing masculinity while also reducing it to erroneous tropes of misogyny and violence."[10]
Following the 2024 attempted assassination of Donald Trump, the track resurged in popularity, placing in the top 10 on the US iTunes sales chart,[11] and rising in sales by 250% on other streaming platforms.[12] 50 Cent responded to the rise popularity by posting on social media "Trump gets shot and now I'm trending ♂️", alongside an edited version of the album cover for Get Rich or Die Tryin with Trump's face placed over his own.[13] 50 Cent further performed "Many Men" with the edited cover photo the night of the attempted assassination during a concert in Boston.[14] The edited album cover consequently made the song more popular, spreading on the internet through memes, including an AI cover of "Many Men" performed by Trump.[15]