“Still Hungry!”

“50 Cent makes my blood boil,” says Lloyd Banks, 50’s longtime mic partner. “Whenever he writes a new rhyme, I wanna come back with something right away!”

“I gotta stay on the top of my game,” 50 Cent responds. “And I’m still hungry.” For years, this friendly rivalry has kept the streets ankle-deep in G-Unit mix tapes — notorious bootlegs released almost monthly, it seems, by 50 Cent and his homies Banks and Tony Yayo, all from Queens, New York. Nashville’s Young Buck rounds out the group.

Despite Yayo’s current prison stint for gun charges, he will appear on Beg for Mercy, due in late fall. He laid down verses before his sentence began and will tour with G-Unit upon his release in January.

Recorded mostly on the road in a studio-equipped bulletproof bus, the album explores G-Unit’s flashier side. “People want to know about girls, how your lifestyle changes,” says Banks, who recently put down $100,000 for a jeweled cross.

One of their ass-bumping odes to extravagance is “Teach You How to Stunt.” “I don’t care if you got a $3,000 outfit on or only 100 bucks in your pocket — you hear this, you’re gonna feel like a star!” Banks promises.

They haven’t left ’hood life behind entirely, though. “My Buddy,” a love letter to a pistol, captures former crack slinger 50 Cent and his troupe in full-on thug mode. “If this comes on in a club, somebody might get hurt!” Buck leers. “It’ll turn cowards into killers!”