50 cent - corner bodega/ghetto qua'ran

i've always heard them as connected, it's the first way i heard them played, the first time i ever heard 50 (the summer of 2001, i think, two years after both songs were first released). on an underground hip-hop show on community radio, between some nas freestyle thing and a fresh fish store-sponsored local talent spot ("we may be landlocked but we're swimming in a sea of talent!"). it's the order on guess who's back. they match up just right. -- corner bodega is a perfectly observed miniature, sixteen bars, under two minutes, and there's still a great hook. 50 advises his associates to stay in the car with the money while he goes to check the product but is upset by the quality of the product and the treatment he recieves from his connect ("man, when i come up in here, treat me like i'm fam / i could go uptown and get this shit sixteen cents a gram / bottom line is i got to cop and go / i got a spot and i can't afford to stop the flow / papi, what the fuck is the problem with your man / standin against the wall with a gun in his hand"), who explains that times are hard-- "i know, don't remind me / if I catch another case i'ma kill giuliani / it ain't even safe to sell a pack at night / got task ridin round the projects on mountain bikes." and outro and beat switching seamlessly into ghetto qua'ran, the epic, read-along, naming-names shit, contrasting the on-the-come-up hustler in corner bodega with the southside crack legends. --- i always imagine 50 as kind of a throwback gangsta in his mixtape stories, looking like mekhi phifer in paid in full, in the 88 convertible 5-series with gold spokes, rather than whatever new stuff. ----------