Hip-Hop is accepted as a contact sport by most participants and can lead to a heated war of words or worse. Few artists have a better grasp of the rules of engagement than 50 Cent, who has made a career out of pressing rivals' buttons and making his opponents feel his wrath, whether musically or otherwise.

Getting his start in the music industry under Run-D.M.C. member Jam Master Jay, 50 Cent would ultimately earn a record deal with Columbia Records, releasing the incendiary single "How To Rob" in 1999, as well as "Life's On The Line," a diss record intended for Ja Rule and his Murder Inc. Records crew. Those songs, along with the Destiny's Child collaboration "Thug Love" would put the rising Queens rapper on the industry radar and make him one of New York's more promising upstarts heading into the new millennium.

On the eve of the video shoot for "Thug Love," May 24, 2000, 50 Cent would be the victim of a murder attempt outside of his grandmother's Southside, Jamaica Queens home. He was shot nine times, suffering hand, arm, hip, both legs, chest and left cheek. The shooting would lead Columbia Records to drop him from the label, putting Fif on the brink of obscurity, but would also fuel his eventual rise to the top of the rap food chain and birth the fearless competitor that he's known as today. To mark the 18th anniversary of the murder attempt that would alter the course of hip-hop history forever, The Boombox looks back on 15 of 50 Cent's most notorious beefs and disputes that have earned him the reputation of rap's resident bully.

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