50 Cent Singer

Rapper 50 Cent's "The Massacre," which entered the national sales chart at No. 1 on March 9 after selling 1.14 million copies in its first four days in the stores, holds on to the top chart spot after selling 771,000 more copies last week. With that success, 50 Cent's extended musical family on Interscope Records claims three spots in the Top 10, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Compton rapper the Game, who is part of 50 Cent's rap group G-Unit, holds the No.

A behind-the-scenes look at this summer's Eminem-50 Cent "Anger Management" tour premieres at 5 p.m. today in a webcast on MTV Overdrive, part of MTV.com, six days ahead of its conventional telecast on the MTV cable channel. MTV officials describe the hybrid offering as a network television first.

Like candidates trying to sway voters on Election Day, Kanye West and 50 Cent will appear on BET's "106 & Park" on Tuesday, when both their heavily anticipated albums hit stores. West and 50 Cent have hyped the albums as an epic battle of rap titans -- 50 Cent has said he'd retire if West's "Graduation" outsells his "Curtis" CD in their first week out.

Like the last two albums by his mentor Eminem and his own 2003 debut, the new collection by rapper 50 Cent will be released earlier than planned in response to widespread bootlegging. "The Massacre," which is expected to be a commercial blockbuster, will now come out on Thursday instead of the scheduled March 8. The rapper's debut, "Get Rich or Die Tryin'," has sold more than 7 million copies in the U.S. and was the biggest-selling album of 2003.

THE name "50 Cent" and the words "modest success" just don't seem to go together for lots of reasons, but that's the best way to describe the early sales of the "Get Rich or Die Tryin' " soundtrack CD, which hit stores on Tuesday and is lagging well off the rapper's usually torrid sales pace. "It wasn't quite what some people expected," said Geoff Mayfield, director of charts and senior analyst for Billboard, the music industry trade publication. Early reports from retailers had the 18-track CD on pace to sell about 300,000 in its first week, although the release of the tie-in film on Wednesday should factor into its weekend performance.

"50 Cent: The Money and the Power" premiered on MTV on Thursday. In the series, 14 contestants compete to prove their entrepreneurial savvy and display their corporate blood lust. 50 Cent -- real name Curtis Jackson -- is also the co-author of the forthcoming book "The 50th Law. " His new album will be released Dec. 9. The new single: Scott Storch produced it. He's a little bit of a wanted man! Do you know where he is? [Storch owes half a million dollars in property taxes and has lost much of his fortune valued at over $70 million.]

Rapper 50 Cent, who held a press conference Wednesday to say that he has settled his high-profile "differences" with partner the Game, entered the national sales chart at No. 1 the same day, after his new album, "Massacre," sold a record 1.14 million copies in just four days. One reason 50 Cent is so hot is that the 28-year-old New Yorker has been all over pop radio in recent weeks, thanks to such hits as "Disco Inferno," "Candy Shop" (with Olivia) and "How We Do" (with the Game).

50 Cent said he was saddened by the fatal shooting at a theater where his movie "Get Rich or Die Tryin' " was playing. "I feel for the victim's family in this situation," 50 Cent said on ABC's "The View" on Friday. "But you know, these weren't kids. This was a 30-year-old man [who] had a dispute with three other guys." Shelton Flowers, 30, was shot at least three times Wednesday night after he got into an argument with another man inside a Loews multiplex just east of Pittsburgh.

Here's what you won't hear rapper 50 Cent say from the stage on the new MTV special, "The Life & Rhymes of ... 50 Cent": "I just want to know how many of you listen to Game's album. It was great, wasn't it? It was great because I wrote it!" The Game is a popular Compton rapper and the album is "The Documentary," one of the year's hottest CDs. MTV's idea was to present rapper 50 Cent as everything he usually is not. Confessional instead of combative. Stirring up nostalgia instead of trouble.

Don't hold your breath waiting for 50 Cent to retire. Sure, the trash-talking MC may have uttered what seemed like famous last words, vowing to hang up his mike if Kanye West's "Graduation" were to outsell 50's third album, "Curtis," in their first week of release.