RAID, acronym for ''Redundant Array of Independent Disks'' (originally ''Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks''), is a technology that provides increased storage functions and reliability through redundancy. This is achieved by combining multiple disk drive components into a logical unit, where data are distributed across the drives in one of several ways called "RAID levels"; this concept is an example of storage virtualization and was first defined by David A. Patterson, Garth A. Gibson, and Randy Katz at the University of California, Berkeley in 1987 as ''Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks''. Marketers representing industry RAID manufacturers later attempted to reinvent the term to describe a ''redundant array of independent disks'' as a means of dissociating a low-cost expectation from RAID technology.

RAID is now used as an umbrella term for computer data storage schemes that can divide and replicate data among multiple physical disk drives. The physical disks are said to be ''in'' a RAID array, which is accessed by the operating system as one single disk. The different schemes or architectures are named by the word RAID followed by a number (e.g., RAID 0, RAID 1). Each scheme provides a different balance between two key goals: increase data reliability and increase input/output performance.

Standard levels

A number of standard schemes have evolved which are referred to as ''levels''. There were five RAID levels originally conceived, but many more variations have evolved, notably several nested levels and many non-standard levels (mostly proprietary). RAID levels and their associated data formats are standardised by SNIA in the Common RAID Disk Drive Format (DDF) standard.

Following is a brief textual summary of the most commonly used RAID levels.

:* ''RAID 0'' (block-level striping without parity or mirroring) has no (or zero) redundancy. It provides improved performance and additional storage but no fault tolerance. Hence simple stripe sets are normally referred to as RAID 0. Any disk failure destroys the array, and the likelihood of failure increases with more disks in the array (at a minimum, catastrophic data loss is almost twice as likely compared to single drives without RAID). A single disk failure destroys the entire array because when data is written to a RAID 0 volume, the data is broken into fragments called blocks. The number of blocks is dictated by the stripe size, which is a configuration parameter of the array. The blocks are written to their respective disks simultaneously on the same sector. This allows smaller sections of the entire chunk of data to be read off the drive in parallel, increasing bandwidth. RAID 0 does not implement error checking, so any error is uncorrectable. More disks in the array means higher bandwidth, but greater risk of data loss.

:* In ''RAID 1'' (mirroring without parity or striping), data is written identically to multiple disks (a "mirrored set"). While any number of disks may be used, many implementations deal with only 2. The array continues to operate as long as at least one drive is functioning. With appropriate operating system support, there can be increased read performance, and only a minimal write performance reduction; implementing RAID 1 with a separate controller for each disk in order to perform simultaneous reads (and writes) is sometimes called ''multiplexing'' (or ''duplexing'' when there are only 2 disks).

:* In ''RAID 2'' (bit-level striping with dedicated Hamming-code parity), all disk spindle rotation is synchronized, and data is striped such that each sequential bit is on a different disk. Hamming-code parity is calculated across corresponding bits on disks and stored on at least one parity disk.

:* In ''RAID 3'' (byte-level striping with dedicated parity), all disk spindle rotation is synchronized, and data is striped so each sequential byte is on a different disk. Parity is calculated across corresponding bytes on disks and stored on a dedicated parity disk.

:* ''RAID 4'' (block-level striping with dedicated parity) is identical to RAID 5 (see below), but confines all parity data to a single disk, which can create a performance bottleneck. In this setup, files can be distributed between multiple disks. Each disk operates independently which allows I/O requests to be performed in parallel, though data transfer speeds can suffer due to the type of parity. The error detection is achieved through dedicated parity and is stored in a separate, single disk unit.

:* ''RAID 5'' (block-level striping with distributed parity) distributes parity along with the data and requires all drives but one to be present to operate; the array is not destroyed by a single drive failure. Upon drive failure, any subsequent reads can be calculated from the distributed parity such that the drive failure is masked from the end user. However, a single drive failure results in reduced performance of the entire array until the failed drive has been replaced and the associated data rebuilt.

:* ''RAID 6'' (block-level striping with double distributed parity) provides fault tolerance of two drive failures; the array continues to operate with up to two failed drives. This makes larger RAID groups more practical, especially for high-availability systems. This becomes increasingly important as large-capacity drives lengthen the time needed to recover from the failure of a single drive. Single-parity RAID levels are as vulnerable to data loss as a RAID 0 array until the failed drive is replaced and its data rebuilt; the larger the drive, the longer the rebuild takes. Double parity gives time to rebuild the array without the data being at risk if a single additional drive fails before the rebuild is complete.

The following table provides an overview of the most important parameters of standard RAID levels. In each case:

Array space efficiency is given as an expression in terms of the number of drives, $n$; this expression designates a value between 0 and 1, representing the fraction of the sum of the drives' capacities that is available for use. For example, if 3 drives are arranged in RAID 3, this gives an array space efficiency of $1\; -\; (1/n)\; =\; 1\; -\; (1/3)\; =\; 2/3$ (approximately 66%); thus, if each disk in this example has a capacity of 250 GB, then the array has a total capacity of 750 GB but the capacity that is usable for data storage is only 500 GB.

Array failure rate is given as an expression in terms of the number of drives, $n$, and the drive failure rate, $r$ (which is assumed to be identical and independent for each drive). For example, if each of 3 drives has a failure rate of 5% over the next 3 years, and these drives are arranged in RAID 3, then this gives an array failure rate of $n(n-1)r^2\; =\; 3(3-1)(5\%)^2\; =\; 3(2)(0.0025)\; =\; 0.015\; =\; 1.5\%$ over the next 3 years.

! Level !! Description !! Minimum # of disks !! Space Efficiency !! Fault Tolerance !! Array Failure Rate** !! Read Benefit !! Write Benefit !! Image
	Block-level striping without parity or mirroring.	2	1	0 (none)	1−(1−r)n	nX	nX
		2	1/n	n−1 disks	rn	nX	1X
		3	1 − 1/n ⋅ log2(n-1)	RAID 2 can recover from 1 disk failure or repair corrupt data or parity when a corrupted bit's corresponding data and parity are good.	variable	variable	variable
	Byte-level striping with dedicated parity.	3	1 − 1/n	1 disk	n(n−1)r2	(n−1)X	(n−1)X*
	Block-level striping with dedicated parity.	3	1 − 1/n	1 disk	n(n−1)r2	(n−1)X	(n−1)X*
	Block-level striping with distributed parity.	3	1 − 1/n	1 disk	n(n−1)r2	(n−1)X*	(n−1)X*
	Block-level striping with double distributed parity.	4	1 − 2/n	2 disks	n(n-1)(n-2)r3	(n−2)X*	(n−2)X*

''*'' - Assumes hardware is fast enough to support ''**'' - Assumes independent, identical rate of failure amongst disks

Nested (hybrid) RAID

In what was originally termed hybrid RAID, many storage controllers allow RAID levels to be nested. The elements of a ''RAID'' may be either individual disks or RAIDs themselves. Nesting more than two deep is unusual.

As there is no basic RAID level numbered larger than 9, nested RAIDs are usually unambiguously described by attaching the numbers indicating the RAID levels, sometimes with a "+" in between. The order of the digits in a nested RAID designation is the order in which the nested array is built: For RAID 1+0, drives are first combined into multiple RAID 1 arrays that are themselves treated as single drives to be combined into a single RAID 0 array; the reverse structure is also possible (RAID 0+1).

The final RAID level is known as the top array. When the top array is a RAID 0 (such as in RAID 1+0 and RAID 5+0), most vendors omit the "+" (yielding RAID 10 and RAID 50, respectively).

RAID 0+1: striped sets in a mirrored set (minimum four disks; even number of disks) provides fault tolerance and improved performance but increases complexity.

:The key difference from RAID 1+0 is that RAID 0+1 creates a second striped set to mirror a primary striped set. The array continues to operate with one or more drives failed in the same mirror set, but if drives fail on both sides of the mirror the data on the RAID system is lost.

RAID 1+0: (a.k.a. RAID 10) mirrored sets in a striped set (minimum four disks; even number of disks) provides fault tolerance and improved performance but increases complexity.

:The key difference from RAID 0+1 is that RAID 1+0 creates a striped set from a series of mirrored drives. The array can sustain multiple drive losses so long as no mirror loses all its drives.

RAID 5+1: mirrored striped set with distributed parity (some manufacturers label this as RAID 53).

Whether an array runs as RAID 0+1 or RAID 1+0 in practice is often determined by the evolution of the storage system. A RAID controller might support upgrading a RAID 1 array to a RAID 1+0 array on the fly, but require a lengthy offline rebuild to upgrade from RAID 1 to RAID 0+1. With nested arrays, sometimes the path of least disruption prevails over achieving the preferred configuration.

RAID Parity

Many RAID levels employ an error protection scheme called "parity". Most use the simple XOR parity described in this section, but RAID 6 uses two separate parities based respectively on addition and multiplication in a particular Galois Field or Reed-Solomon error correction. XOR parity calculation is a widely used method in information technology to provide fault tolerance in a given set of data.

In Boolean logic, there is an operation called exclusive or (XOR), meaning "one or the other, but not neither and not both." For example:

0 XOR 0 = 0 0 XOR 1 = 1 1 XOR 0 = 1 1 XOR 1 = 0

The XOR operator is central to how parity data is created and used within an array. It is used both for the protection of data, as well as for the recovery of missing data.

As an example, consider a simple RAID made up of 6 drives (4 for data, 1 for parity, and 1 for use as a hot spare), where each drive has only a single byte worth of storage (a '-' represents a bit, the value of which doesn't matter at this point in the discussion):

Drive #1: -------- (Data) Drive #2: -------- (Data) Drive #3: -------- (Data) Drive #4: -------- (Data) Drive #5: -------- (Hot Spare) Drive #6: -------- (Parity)

Let the following data be written to the data drives:

Drive #1: 00101010 (Data) Drive #2: 10001110 (Data) Drive #3: 11110111 (Data) Drive #4: 10110101 (Data) Drive #5: -------- (Hot Spare) Drive #6: -------- (Parity)

Every time data is written to the data drives, a parity value is calculated in order to be able to recover from a data drive failure. To calculate the parity for this RAID, a bitwise XOR of each drive's data is calculated as follows, the result of which is the parity data:

: 00101010 XOR 10001110 XOR 11110111 XOR 10110101 = 11100110

The parity data 11100110 is then written to the dedicated parity drive:

Drive #1: 00101010 (Data) Drive #2: 10001110 (Data) Drive #3: 11110111 (Data) Drive #4: 10110101 (Data) Drive #5: -------- (Hot Spare) Drive #6: 11100110 (Parity)

Suppose Drive #3 fails. In order to restore the contents of Drive #3, the same XOR calculation is performed using the data of all the remaining data drives and (as a substitute for Drive #3) the parity value (11100110) stored in Drive #6:

: 00101010 XOR 10001110 XOR 11100110 XOR 10110101 = 11110111

With the complete contents of Drive #3 recovered, the data is written to the hot spare, and the RAID can continue operating.

Drive #1: 00101010 (Data) Drive #2: 10001110 (Data) Drive #3: --Dead-- (Data) Drive #4: 10110101 (Data) Drive #5: 11110111 (Hot Spare) Drive #6: 11100110 (Parity)

At this point the dead drive has to be replaced with a working one of the same size. Depending on the implementation, the new drive either takes over as a new hot spare drive and the old hot spare drive continues to act as a data drive of the array, or (as illustrated below) the original hot spare's contents are automatically copied to the new drive by the array controller, allowing the original hot spare to return to its original purpose as an emergency standby drive. The resulting array is identical to its pre-failure state:

Drive #1: 00101010 (Data) Drive #2: 10001110 (Data) Drive #3: 11110111 (Data) Drive #4: 10110101 (Data) Drive #5: -------- (Hot Spare) Drive #6: 11100110 (Parity)

This same basic XOR principle applies to parity within RAID groups regardless of capacity or number of drives. As long as there are enough drives present to allow for an XOR calculation to take place, parity can be used to recover data from any single drive failure. (A minimum of three drives must be present in order for parity to be used for fault tolerance, because the XOR operator requires two operands, and a place to store the result).

RAID 10 versus RAID 5 in Relational Databases

A common myth (and one which serves to illustrate the dynamics of proper RAID deployment) is that RAID 10 is inherently better for relational databases than RAID 5, due to the fact that RAID 5 requires to recalculate and redistribute parity data on a per-write basis.

While this may have been a hurdle in past RAID 5 implementations, the task of parity recalculation and redistribution within modern Storage Area Network (SAN) appliances is performed as a back-end process transparent to the host, not as an in-line process which competes with existing I/O. (i.e. the RAID controller handles this as a housekeeping task to be performed during a particular spindle's idle timeslices, so as not to disrupt any pending I/O from the host.) The "write penalty" inherent to RAID 5 has been effectively masked since the late 1990s by a combination of improved controller design, larger amounts of cache, and faster hard disks. The effect of a write penalty when using RAID 5 is mostly a concern when the workload has a high number of random writes.

In the vast majority of enterprise-level SAN hardware, any writes which are generated by the host are simply stored in a small, mirrored NVRAM cache, acknowledged immediately, and finally synchronized on disk when the controller sees fit to do so from an efficiency standpoint. From the host's perspective, an individual write to a RAID 10 volume is no faster than an individual write to a RAID 5 volume; a difference between them only becomes apparent when the write cache at the SAN controller level is overwhelmed, so that the SAN appliance must reject or gate further write requests. While rare, this generally indicates poor performance management on behalf of the SAN administrator, not a shortcoming of RAID 5 or RAID 10. SAN appliances generally service multiple hosts that compete both for controller cache and spindle time. This contention is largely masked, because the controller is generally capable enough to maximize read cache hit ratios while flushing other cached data from the write cache.

The choice between RAID 10 and RAID 5 for the purpose of housing a relational database depends upon a number of factors (spindle availability, cost, business risk, etc.) but, from a performance standpoint, it depends mostly on the type of I/O expected for a particular database application. For databases that are expected to be exclusively or strongly read-biased, RAID 10 is often chosen because it offers a slight speed improvement over RAID 5 on sustained reads and sustained randomized writes. If a database is expected to be strongly write-biased, RAID 5 becomes the more attractive option, since RAID 5 does not suffer from the same write handicap inherent in RAID 10; all spindles in a RAID 5 can be utilized to write simultaneously, whereas only half the members of a RAID 10 can be used. However, for reasons similar to what has eliminated the "read penalty" in RAID 5, the 'write penalty' of RAID 10 has been largely masked by improvements in controller cache efficiency and disk throughput.

What causes RAID 5 to be slightly slower than RAID 10 on sustained reads is the fact that RAID 5 has parity data interleaved within normal data. For every read pass in RAID 5, there is a probability that a read head may need to traverse a region of parity data. The cumulative effect of this is a slight performance drop compared to RAID 10, which does not use parity, and therefore never encounters a circumstance where data underneath a head is of no use. For the vast majority of situations, however, most relational databases housed on RAID 10 perform equally well in RAID 5. The strengths and weaknesses of each type only become an issue in atypical deployments, or deployments on overcommitted hardware.

There are, however, other considerations which must be taken into account other than simply those regarding performance. RAID 5 and other non-mirror-based arrays offer a lower degree of resiliency than RAID 10 by virtue of RAID 10's mirroring strategy. In a RAID 10, I/O can continue even in spite of multiple drive failures. By comparison, in a RAID 5 array, any failure involving more than one drive renders the array itself unusable by virtue of parity recalculation being impossible to perform. Thus, RAID 10 is frequently favored because it provides the lowest level of risk.

Additionally, the time required to rebuild data on a hot spare in a RAID 10 is significantly less than in a RAID 5, because all the remaining spindles in a RAID 5 rebuild must participate in the process, whereas only the hot spare and one mirror are required in a RAID 10. Thus, in comparison to a RAID 5, a RAID 10 has a smaller window of opportunity during which a second drive failure could cause array failure.

Again, modern SAN design largely masks any performance hit while a RAID is in a degraded state, by virtue of being able to perform rebuild operations both in-band or out-of-band with respect to existing I/O traffic. Given the rare nature of drive failures in general, and the exceedingly low probability of multiple concurrent drive failures occurring within the same RAID array, the choice of RAID 5 over RAID 10 often comes down to the preference of the storage administrator, particularly when weighed against other factors such as cost, throughput requirements, and physical spindle availability.

In short, the choice between RAID 5 between RAID 10 involves a complicated mixture of factors. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, as the choice of one over the other must be dictated by everything from the I/O characteristics of the database, to business risk, to worst case degraded-state throughput, to the number and type of disks present in the array itself. Over the course of the life of a database, one may even see situations where RAID 5 is initially favored, but RAID 10 slowly becomes the better choice, and vice versa.

New RAID classification

In 1996, the RAID Advisory Board introduced an improved classification of RAID systems. It divides RAID into three types:

''Failure-resistant'' (systems that protect against loss of data due to disk failure).

''Failure-tolerant'' (systems that protect against loss of data access due to failure of any single component).

''Disaster-tolerant'' (systems that consist of two or more independent zones, either of which provides access to stored data).

The original "Berkeley" RAID classifications are still kept as an important historical reference point and also to recognize that RAID Levels 0–6 successfully define all known data mapping and protection schemes for disk-based storage systems. Unfortunately, the original classification caused some confusion due to the assumption that higher RAID levels imply higher redundancy and performance; this confusion has been exploited by RAID system manufacturers, and it has given birth to the products with such names as RAID-7, RAID-10, RAID-30, RAID-S, etc. Consequently, the new classification describes the data availability characteristics of a RAID system, leaving the details of its implementation to system manufacturers.

• Failure-resistant disk systems (FRDS) (meets a minimum of criteria 1–6)
  1. Protection against data loss and loss of access to data due to disk drive failure
  2. Reconstruction of failed drive content to a replacement drive
  3. Protection against data loss due to a "write hole"
  4. Protection against data loss due to host and host I/O bus failure
  5. Protection against data loss due to replaceable unit failure
  6. Replaceable unit monitoring and failure indication
• Failure-tolerant disk systems (FTDS) (meets a minimum of criteria 1–15)
  7. Disk automatic swap and hot swap
  8. Protection against data loss due to cache failure
  9. Protection against data loss due to external power failure
  10. Protection against data loss due to a temperature out of operating range
  11. Replaceable unit and environmental failure warning
  12. Protection against loss of access to data due to device channel failure
  13. Protection against loss of access to data due to controller module failure
  14. Protection against loss of access to data due to cache failure
  15. Protection against loss of access to data due to power supply failure
• Disaster-tolerant disk systems (DTDS) (meets a minimum of criteria 1–21)
  16. Protection against loss of access to data due to host and host I/O bus failure
  17. Protection against loss of access to data due to external power failure
  18. Protection against loss of access to data due to component replacement
  19. Protection against loss of data and loss of access to data due to multiple disk failure
  20. Protection against loss of access to data due to zone failure
  21. Long-distance protection against loss of data due to zone failure

Non-standard levels

Many configurations other than the basic numbered RAID levels are possible, and many companies, organizations, and groups have created their own non-standard configurations, in many cases designed to meet the specialised needs of a small niche group. Most of these non-standard RAID levels are proprietary.

Storage Computer Corporation used to call a cached version of RAID 3 and 4, ''RAID 7''. Storage Computer Corporation is now defunct.

EMC Corporation used to offer ''RAID S'' as an alternative to RAID 5 on their Symmetrix systems. Their latest generations of Symmetrix, the DMX and the V-Max series, do not support RAID S (instead they support RAID 1, RAID 5 and RAID 6.)

The ZFS filesystem, available in Solaris, OpenSolaris and FreeBSD, offers ''RAID-Z'', which solves RAID 5's write hole problem.

Hewlett-Packard's ''Advanced Data Guarding'' (ADG) is a form of RAID 6.

NetApp's Data ONTAP uses RAID-DP (also referred to as "double", "dual", or "diagonal" parity), is a form of RAID 6, but unlike many RAID 6 implementations, it does not use distributed parity as in RAID 5. Instead, two unique parity disks with separate parity calculations are used. This is a modification of RAID 4 with an extra parity disk.

Accusys ''Triple Parity'' (RAID TP) implements three independent parities by extending RAID 6 algorithms on its FC-SATA and SCSI-SATA RAID controllers to tolerate a failure of 3 drives.

Linux MD RAID10 (RAID 10) implements a general RAID driver that defaults to a standard RAID 1 with 2 drives, and a standard RAID 1+0 with four drives, but can have any number of drives, including odd numbers. MD RAID 10 can run striped and mirrored, even with only two drives with the f2 layout (mirroring with striped reads, giving the read performance of RAID 0; normal Linux software RAID 1 does not stripe reads, but can read in parallel).

Hewlett-Packard's EVA series arrays implement vRAID - vRAID-0, vRAID-1, vRAID-5, and vRAID-6; vRAID levels are closely aligned to Nested RAID levels: vRAID-1 is actually a RAID 1+0 (or RAID 10), vRAID-5 is actually a RAID 5+0 (or RAID 50), etc.

IBM (among others) has implemented a RAID 1E (Level 1 Enhanced). It requires a minimum of 3 drives. It is similar to a RAID 1+0 array, but it can also be implemented with either an even or odd number of drives. The total available disk space is n/2.

Hadoop has a RAID system that generates a parity file by xor-ing a stripe of blocks in a single HDFS file.

Data backup

A RAID system used as secondary storage is not intended as a replacement for backing up data. In parity configurations, a RAID provides a backup-like feature to protect from catastrophic data loss caused by physical damage or errors on a single drive within the array. However, many other features of backup systems cannot be provided by a RAID alone. The most notable is the ability to restore an earlier version of data, which is needed to protect against software errors that write unwanted data to secondary storage, and also to recover from user error and malicious data deletion. A RAID can also be overwhelmed by catastrophic failure that exceeds its recovery capacity and, of course, the entire array is at risk of physical damage by fire, natural disaster, and human forces. Furthermore, a RAID is also vulnerable to controller failure because it is not always possible to migrate a RAID to a new controller without data loss.

RAID drives can serve as excellent backup drives when employed as removable backup devices to main storage, and particularly when located off-site from the main systems. However, the use of a RAID as the ''only'' storage solution does not replace backups.

Implementations

The distribution of data across multiple drives can be managed either by dedicated hardware or by software. A software solution may be part of the operating system, or it may be part of the firmware and drivers supplied with a hardware RAID controller.

Software-based RAID

Software RAID implementations are now provided by many operating systems. Software RAID can be implemented as:

a layer that abstracts multiple devices, thereby providing a single virtual device (e.g. Linux's md).

a more generic logical volume manager (provided with most server-class operating systems, e.g. Veritas or LVM).

a component of the file system (e.g. ZFS or Btrfs).

Volume manager support

Server class operating systems typically provide logical volume management, which allows a system to use logical volumes which can be resized or moved. Often, features like RAID or snapshots are also supported.

Vinum is a logical volume manager supporting RAID-0, RAID-1, and RAID-5. Vinum is part of the base distribution of the FreeBSD operating system, and versions exist for NetBSD, OpenBSD, and DragonFly BSD.

Solaris SVM supports RAID 1 for the boot filesystem, and adds RAID 0 and RAID 5 support (and various nested combinations) for data drives.

Linux LVM supports RAID 0 and RAID 1.

HP's OpenVMS provides a form of RAID 1 called "Volume shadowing", giving the possibility to mirror data locally and at remote cluster systems.

File system support

Some advanced file systems are designed to organize data across multiple storage devices directly (without needing the help of a third-party logical volume manager).

ZFS supports equivalents of RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5 (RAID Z), RAID 6 (RAID Z2), and a triple parity version RAID Z3, and any nested combination of those like 1+0. ZFS is the native file system on Solaris, and also available on FreeBSD.

Btrfs supports RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 10 (RAID 5 and 6 are under development).

Other support

Many operating systems provide basic RAID functionality independently of volume management. Apple's Mac OS X Server and Mac OS X support RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 1+0. FreeBSD supports RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 3, and RAID 5, and all nestings via GEOM modules and ccd. Linux's md supports RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 4, RAID 5, RAID 6, and all nestings. Certain reshaping/resizing/expanding operations are also supported. Microsoft's server operating systems support RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 5. Some of the Microsoft desktop operating systems support RAID such as Windows XP Professional which supports RAID level 0 in addition to spanning multiple disks but only if using dynamic disks and volumes. Windows XP can be modified to support RAID 0, 1, and 5.

NetBSD supports RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 4, and RAID 5, and all nestings via its software implementation, named RAIDframe.

OpenBSD aims to support RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 4, and RAID 5 via its software implementation softraid.

FlexRAID (for Linux and Windows) is a snapshot RAID implementation.

Software RAID has advantages and disadvantages compared to hardware RAID. The software must run on a host server attached to storage, and the server's processor must dedicate processing time to run the RAID software; the additional processing capacity required for RAID 0 and RAID 1 is low, but parity-based arrays require more complex data processing during write or integrity-checking operations. As the rate of data processing increases with the number of disks in the array, so does the processing requirement. Furthermore, all the buses between the processor and the disk controller must carry the extra data required by RAID, which may cause congestion.

Fortunately, over time, the increase in commodity CPU speed has been consistently greater than the increase in hard disk drive throughput; the percentage of host CPU time required to saturate a given number of hard disk drives has decreased. For instance, under 100% usage of a single core on a 2.1 GHz Intel "Core2" CPU, the Linux software RAID subsystem (''md'') as of version 2.6.26 is capable of calculating parity information at 6 GB/s; however, a three-drive RAID 5 array using hard disks capable of sustaining a write operation at 100 MB/s only requires parity to be calculated at the rate of 200 MB/s, which requires the resources of just over 3% of a single CPU core.

Furthermore, software RAID implementations may employ more sophisticated algorithms than hardware RAID implementations (e.g. disk scheduling and command queueing), and thus, may be capable of better performance.

Another concern with software implementations is the process of booting the associated operating system. For instance, consider a computer being booted from a RAID 1 (mirrored drives); if the first drive in the RAID 1 fails, then a first-stage boot loader might not be sophisticated enough to attempt loading the second-stage boot loader from the second drive as a fallback. In contrast, a RAID 1 hardware controller typically has explicit programming to decide that a drive has malfunctioned and that the next drive should be used. Fortunately, at least the following second-stage boot loaders are capable of loading a kernel from a RAID 1:

LILO (for Linux).

Some configurations of the GRUB.

The boot loader for FreeBSD.

The boot loader for NetBSD.

For data safety, the write-back cache of an operating system or individual drive might need to be turned off in order to ensure that as much data as possible is actually written to secondary storage before some failure (such as a loss of power); unfortunately, turning off the write-back cache has a performance penalty that can be significant depending on the workload and command queuing support. In contrast, a hardware RAID controller may carry a dedicated battery-powered write-back cache of its own, thereby allowing for efficient operation that is also relatively safe. Fortunately, it is possible to avoid such problems with a software controller by constructing a RAID with safer components; for instance, each drive could have its own battery or capacitor on its own write-back cache, and the drive could implement atomicity in various ways, and the entire RAID or computing system could be powered by a UPS, etc.

Finally, a software RAID controller that is built into an operating system usually uses proprietary data formats and RAID levels, so an associated RAID usually cannot be shared between operating systems as part of a multi boot setup. However, such a RAID may be moved between computers that share the same operating system; in contrast, such mobility is more difficult when using a hardware RAID controller because both computers must provide compatible hardware controllers. Also, if the hardware controller fails before the drives do, data could become unrecoverable unless a hardware controller of the same type is obtained.

Most software implementations allow a RAID to be created from partitions rather than entire physical drives. For instance, an administrator could divide each drive of an odd number of drives into two partitions, and then mirror partitions across drives and stripe a volume across the mirrored partitions to emulate IBM's RAID 1E configuration. Using partitions in this way also allows for constructing multiple RAIDs in various RAID levels from the same set of drives. For example, one could have a very robust RAID 1 for important files, and a less robust RAID 5 or RAID 0 for less important data, all using the same set of underlying drives. (Some BIOS-based controllers offer similar features, e.g. Intel Matrix RAID.) Using 2 partitions from the same drive in the same RAID is, however, dangerous.

A RAID 1 across partitions from the same drive makes all the data inaccessible if the single drive fails.

Consider a RAID 5 composed of 4 drives, 3 of which are 250 GB and one of which is 500 GB; the 500 GB drive is split into 2 partitions, each of which is 250 GB. Then, a failure of the 500 GB drive would remove 2 underlying 'drives' from the array, causing a failure of the entire array.

Hardware-based RAID

Hardware RAID controllers use proprietary data layouts, so it is not usually possible to span controllers from different manufacturers. They do not require processor resources, the BIOS can boot from them, and tighter integration with the device driver may offer better error handling.

On a desktop system, a hardware RAID controller may be a PCI or PCIe expansion card or a component integrated into the motherboard; there are controllers for supporting most types of drive technology, such as IDE/ATA, SATA, SCSI, SSA, Fibre Channel, and sometimes even a combination. The controller and drives may be in a stand-alone enclosure, rather than inside a computer, and the enclosure may be directly attached to a computer, or connected via a SAN.

Most hardware implementations provide a read/write cache, which, depending on the I/O workload, improves performance. In most systems, the write cache is non-volatile (i.e. battery-protected), so pending writes are not lost should a power failure occur.

Hardware implementations provide guaranteed performance, add no computational overhead to the host computer, and can support many operating systems; the controller simply presents the RAID array as another logical drive.

Firmware/driver-based RAID

A RAID implemented at the level of an operating system is not always compatible with the system's boot process, and it is generally impractical for desktop versions of Windows (as described above). However, hardware RAID controllers are expensive and proprietary. To fill this gap, cheap "RAID controllers" were introduced that do not contain a dedicated RAID controller chip, but simply a standard disk controller chip with special firmware and drivers; during early stage bootup, the RAID is implemented by the firmware, and once the operating system has been more completely loaded, then the drivers take over control. Consequently, such controllers may not work when there is no driver support available for the host operating system..

Initially, the term "RAID controller" implied that the controller does the processing. Unfortunately, while this type of controller is described by manufacturers as a "RAID controller", it is rarely made clear that the burden of RAID processing is borne by a host computer's central processing unit rather than the RAID controller itself. Thus, this new type has become known by some as a "fake" RAID controller; Adaptec calls it a "HostRAID".

Moreover, a firmware controller can often only use certain types of hard drives to form the RAID that it manages (e.g. SATA for an Intel Matrix RAID, as there is neither SCSI nor PATA support in modern Intel ICH southbridges; however, motherboard makers implement RAID controllers outside of the southbridge on some motherboards).

Hot spares

Both hardware and software RAIDs with redundancy may support the use of ''hot spare'' drives, a drive physically installed in the array which is inactive until an active drive fails, when the system automatically replaces the failed drive with the spare, rebuilding the array with the spare drive included. This reduces the mean time to recovery (MTTR), but does not completely eliminate it. Subsequent additional failure(s) in the same RAID redundancy group before the array is fully rebuilt can result in data loss. Rebuilding can take several hours, especially on busy systems.

Rapid replacement of failed drives is important as all the drives of an array will have had the same amount of use, and may tend to fail at about the same time rather than randomly. RAID 6 without a spare uses the same number of drives as RAID 5 with a hot spare and protects data against simultaneous failure of up to two drives, but requires a more advanced RAID controller. Further, a hot spare can be shared by multiple RAID sets.

Data Scrubbing

With data scrubbing, the RAID controller periodically reads all the disks in a RAID array and checks for defective blocks before they are actually accessed by applications. This reduces the probability of silent data corruption and data loss due to bit errors.

Reliability terms

; Failure rate: Two different kinds of failure rates are applicable to RAID systems. Logical failure is defined as the loss of a single drive and its rate is equal to the sum of individual drives' failure rates. System failure is defined as loss of data and its rate will depend on the type of RAID. For RAID 0 this is equal to the logical failure rate, as there is no redundancy. For other types of RAID, it will be less than the logical failure rate, potentially approaching zero, and its exact value will depend on the type of RAID, the number of drives employed, and the vigilance and alacrity of its human administrators.

; Mean time to data loss (MTTDL): In this context, the average time before a loss of data in a given array. Mean time to data loss of a given RAID may be higher or lower than that of its constituent hard drives, depending upon what type of RAID is employed. The referenced report assumes times to data loss are exponentially distributed. This means 63.2% of all data loss will occur between time 0 and the MTTDL.

; Mean time to recovery (MTTR): In arrays that include redundancy for reliability, this is the time following a failure to restore an array to its normal failure-tolerant mode of operation. This includes time to replace a failed disk mechanism as well as time to re-build the array (i.e. to replicate data for redundancy).

; Unrecoverable bit error rate (UBE): This is the rate at which a disk drive will be unable to recover data after application of cyclic redundancy check (CRC) codes and multiple retries.

; Write cache reliability: Some RAID systems use RAM write cache to increase performance. A power failure can result in data loss unless this sort of disk buffer is supplemented with a battery to ensure that the buffer has enough time to write from RAM back to disk.

; Atomic write failure: Also known by various terms such as torn writes, torn pages, incomplete writes, interrupted writes, non-transactional, etc.

Problems with RAID

Correlated failures

The theory behind the error correction in RAID assumes that failures of drives are independent. Given these assumptions it is possible to calculate how often they can fail and to arrange the array to make data loss arbitrarily improbable.

In practice, the drives are often the same age, with similar wear, and subject to the same environment. Since many drive failures are due to mechanical issues which are more likely on older drives, this violates those assumptions and failures are in fact statistically correlated. In practice then, the chances of a second failure before the first has been recovered is not nearly as unlikely as might be supposed, and data loss can, in practice, occur at significant rates.

A common misconception is that "server-grade" drives fail less frequently than consumer-grade drives. Two independent studies, one by Carnegie Mellon University and the other by Google, have shown that the "grade" of the drive does not relate to failure rates.

Atomicity

This is a little understood and rarely mentioned failure mode for redundant storage systems that do not utilize transactional features. Database researcher Jim Gray wrote "Update in Place is a Poison Apple" during the early days of relational database commercialization. However, this warning largely went unheeded and fell by the wayside upon the advent of RAID, which many software engineers mistook as solving all data storage integrity and reliability problems. Many software programs update a storage object "in-place"; that is, they write a new version of the object on to the same disk addresses as the old version of the object. While the software may also log some delta information elsewhere, it expects the storage to present "atomic write semantics," meaning that the write of the data either occurred in its entirety or did not occur at all.

However, very few storage systems provide support for atomic writes, and even fewer specify their rate of failure in providing this semantic. Note that during the act of writing an object, a RAID storage device will usually be writing all redundant copies of the object in parallel, although overlapped or staggered writes are more common when a single RAID processor is responsible for multiple drives. Hence an error that occurs during the process of writing may leave the redundant copies in different states, and furthermore may leave the copies in neither the old nor the new state. The little known failure mode is that delta logging relies on the original data being either in the old or the new state so as to enable backing out the logical change, yet few storage systems provide an atomic write semantic on a RAID disk.

While the battery-backed write cache may partially solve the problem, it is applicable only to a power failure scenario.

Since transactional support is not universally present in hardware RAID, many operating systems include transactional support to protect against data loss during an interrupted write. Novell NetWare, starting with version 3.x, included a transaction tracking system. Microsoft introduced transaction tracking via the journaling feature in NTFS. ext4 has journaling with checksums; ext3 has journaling without checksums but an "append-only" option, or ext3cow (Copy on Write). If the journal itself in a filesystem is corrupted though, this can be problematic. The journaling in NetApp WAFL file system gives atomicity by never updating the data in place, as does ZFS. An alternative method to journaling is soft updates, which are used in some BSD-derived system's implementation of UFS.

This can present as a sector read failure. Some RAID implementations protect against this failure mode by remapping the bad sector, using the redundant data to retrieve a good copy of the data, and rewriting that good data to the newly mapped replacement sector. The UBE (Unrecoverable Bit Error) rate is typically specified at 1 bit in 10¹⁵ for enterprise class disk drives (SCSI, FC, SAS) , and 1 bit in 10¹⁴ for desktop class disk drives (IDE/ATA/PATA, SATA). Increasing disk capacities and large RAID 5 redundancy groups have led to an increasing inability to successfully rebuild a RAID group after a disk failure because an unrecoverable sector is found on the remaining drives. Double protection schemes such as RAID 6 are attempting to address this issue, but suffer from a very high write penalty.

Write cache reliability

The disk system can acknowledge the write operation as soon as the data is in the cache, not waiting for the data to be physically written. This typically occurs in old, non-journaled systems such as FAT32, or if the Linux/Unix "writeback" option is chosen without any protections like the "soft updates" option (to promote I/O speed whilst trading-away data reliability). A power outage or system hang such as a BSOD can mean a significant loss of any data queued in such a cache.

Often a battery is protecting the write cache, mostly solving the problem. If a write fails because of power failure, the controller may complete the pending writes as soon as restarted. This solution still has potential failure cases: the battery may have worn out, the power may be off for too long, the disks could be moved to another controller, the controller itself could fail. Some disk systems provide the capability of testing the battery periodically, however this leaves the system without a fully charged battery for several hours.

An additional concern about write cache reliability exists, specifically regarding devices equipped with a write-back cache—a caching system which reports the data as written as soon as it is written to cache, as opposed to the non-volatile medium. The safer cache technique is write-through, which reports transactions as written when they are written to the non-volatile medium.

Equipment compatibility

The methods used to store data by various RAID controllers are not necessarily compatible, so that it may not be possible to read a RAID array on different hardware, with the exception of RAID 1, which is typically represented as plain identical copies of the original data on each disk. Consequently a non-disk hardware failure may require the use of identical hardware to recover the data, and furthermore an identical configuration has to be reassembled without triggering a rebuild and overwriting the data. Software RAID however, such as implemented in the Linux kernel, alleviates this concern, as the setup is not hardware dependent, but runs on ordinary disk controllers, and allows the reassembly of an array. Additionally, individual RAID1 disks (software, and most hardware implementations) can be read like normal disks when removed from the array, so no RAID system is required to retrieve the data. Inexperienced data recovery firms typically have a difficult time recovering data from RAID drives, with the exception of RAID1 drives with conventional data structure.

Data recovery in the event of a failed array

With larger disk capacities the odds of a disk failure during rebuild are not negligible. In that event the difficulty of extracting data from a failed array must be considered. Only RAID 1 stores all data on each disk. Although it may depend on the controller, some RAID 1 disks can be read as a single conventional disk. This means a dropped RAID 1 disk, although damaged, can often be reasonably easily recovered using a software recovery program. If the damage is more severe, data can often be recovered by professional data recovery specialists. RAID 5 and other striped or distributed arrays present much more formidable obstacles to data recovery in the event the array fails.

Drive error recovery algorithms

Many modern drives have internal error recovery algorithms that can take upwards of a minute to recover and re-map data that the drive fails to easily read. Many RAID controllers will drop a non-responsive drive in 8 seconds or so. This can cause the array to drop a good drive because it has not been given enough time to complete its internal error recovery procedure, leaving the rest of the array vulnerable. So-called enterprise class drives limit the error recovery time and prevent this problem, but desktop drives can be quite risky for this reason. A fix specific to Western Digital drives used to be known: a utility called WDTLER.exe could limit the error recovery time of a Western Digital desktop drive so that it would not be dropped from the array for this reason. The utility enabled TLER (time limited error recovery) which limits the error recovery time to 7 seconds. As of October 2009 Western Digital has locked out this feature in their desktop drives such as the Caviar Black. Western Digital enterprise class drives are shipped from the factory with TLER enabled to prevent being dropped from RAID arrays. Similar technologies are used by Seagate, Samsung, and Hitachi.

As of late 2010, support for ATA Error Recovery Control configuration has been added to the Smartmontools program, so it now allows configuring many desktop class hard drives for use on a RAID controller.

Increasing recovery time

Drive capacity has grown at a much faster rate than transfer speed, and error rates have only fallen a little in comparison. Therefore, larger capacity drives may take hours, if not days, to rebuild. The re-build time is also limited if the entire array is still in operation at reduced capacity. Given a RAID array with only one disk of redundancy (RAIDs 3, 4, and 5), a second failure would cause complete failure of the array. Even though individual drives' mean time between failure (MTBF) have increased over time, this increase has not kept pace with the increased storage capacity of the drives. The time to rebuild the array after a single disk failure, as well as the chance of a second failure during a rebuild, have increased over time.

Operator skills, correct operation

In order to provide the desired protection against physical drive failure, a RAID array must be properly set up and maintained by an operator with sufficient knowledge of the chosen RAID configuration, array controller (hardware or software), failure detection and recovery. Unskilled handling of the array at any stage may exacerbate the consequences of a failure, and result in downtime and full or partial loss of data that might otherwise be recoverable.

Particularly, the array must be monitored, and any failures detected and dealt with promptly. Failure to do so will result in the array continuing to run in a degraded state, vulnerable to further failures. Ultimately more failures may occur, until the entire array becomes inoperable, resulting in data loss and downtime. In this case, any protection the array may provide merely delays this.

The operator must know how to detect failures or verify healthy state of the array, identify which drive failed, have replacement drives available, and know how to replace a drive and initiate a rebuild of the array.

Other problems

While RAID may protect against physical drive failure, the data is still exposed to operator, software, hardware and virus destruction. Many studies cite operator fault as the most common source of malfunction, such as a server operator replacing the incorrect disk in a faulty RAID array, and disabling the system (even temporarily) in the process. Most well-designed systems include separate backup systems that hold copies of the data, but do not allow much interaction with it. Most copy the data and remove the copy from the computer for safe storage.

History

Norman Ken Ouchi at IBM was awarded a 1978 U.S. patent 4,092,732 titled "System for recovering data stored in failed memory unit." The claims for this patent describe what would later be termed RAID 5 with full stripe writes. This 1978 patent also mentions that disk mirroring or duplexing (what would later be termed RAID 1) and protection with dedicated parity (that would later be termed RAID 4) were prior art at that time.

The term RAID was first defined by David A. Patterson, Garth A. Gibson and Randy Katz at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1987. They studied the possibility of using two or more drives to appear as a single device to the host system and published a paper: ''"A Case for Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks (RAID)"'' in June 1988 at the SIGMOD conference.

This specification suggested a number of prototype ''RAID levels'', or combinations of drives. Each had theoretical advantages and disadvantages. Over the years, different implementations of the RAID concept have appeared. Most differ substantially from the original idealized RAID levels, but the numbered names have remained. This can be confusing, since one implementation of RAID 5, for example, can differ substantially from another. RAID 3 and RAID 4 are often confused and even used interchangeably.

One of the early uses of RAID 0 and 1 was the Crosfield Electronics Studio 9500 page layout system based on the Python workstation. The Python workstation was a Crosfield managed international development using PERQ 3B electronics, benchMark Technology's Viper display system and Crosfield's own RAID and fibre-optic network controllers. RAID 0 was particularly important to these workstations as it dramatically sped up image manipulation for the pre-press markets. Volume production started in Peterborough, England in early 1987.

Non-RAID drive architectures

Non-RAID drive architectures also exist, and are often referred to, similarly to RAID, by standard acronyms, several tongue-in-cheek. A single drive is referred to as a SLED (Single Large Expensive Drive), by contrast with RAID, while an array of drives without any additional control (accessed simply as independent drives) is referred to as a JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Disks). Simple concatenation is referred to as a SPAN, or sometimes as JBOD, though this latter is proscribed in careful use, due to the alternative meaning just cited.

See also

Standard RAID levels

Disk array controller

Redundant Array of Inexpensive Nodes

Redundant Array of Independent Memory (RAIM)

Stable storage

Hard drives

Disk array

Storage area network (SAN)

References

Further reading

RAID Level 2

External links

Category:Article Feedback Pilot Category:Fault-tolerant computer systems

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Name	Mike Shinoda
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Michael Kenji Shinoda
Born	February 11, 1977
Origin	Agoura Hills, California, U.S.
Instrument	Vocals, rapping, guitar, keyboard, piano, samples, organ, percussion
Genre	Alternative rock, nu metal, alternative hip hop, rap rock, rap, rap metal
Occupation	Musician, singer-songwriter, lyricist, composer, rapper, vocalist, guitarist, pianist, producer, graphic designer, visual artist
Years active	1996–present
Label	Machine Shop/Warner Bros.
Associated acts	Linkin Park, Fort Minor, Styles of Beyond, Apathy, Cypress Hill, Jay-Z, Lupe Fiasco, Skylar Grey
Website	MikeShinoda.com
Notable instruments	PRS GuitarsIbanez GuitarsGibson GuitarsFender Guitars }}

Michael Kenji "Mike" Shinoda (, born February 11, 1977) is an American musician, record producer, and artist. He is best known as the rapper, principal songwriter, keyboardist, vocalist and rhythm guitarist of the rock band Linkin Park, along with his co-frontman and lead singer Chester Bennington, and as a solo rapper in his side-project, Fort Minor. He also provides artwork, production, and mixing for both groups.

Life and career

Early life

Shinoda was born and raised in the Los Angeles suburb of Agoura Hills. His father is Japanese American, and his mother is a Russian American. He also has a younger brother, Jason. Shinoda attended Parkman Elementary and Lindero Canyon Middle School.

As per his mother's wishes, Shinoda began his classical piano training with lessons around the age of six, his enthusiasm eventually growing. At the age of thirteen, he expressed the desire to move toward playing jazz, blues, and even hip-hop. During his middle school and high school years, he added the guitar and, eventually, rap-style vocals to his repertoire.

After his teens, Mike Shinoda's rap interests found a source of encouragement in Brad Delson, with whom he started to write and record songs in a makeshift studio set up in his bedroom. Shinoda attended Agoura High School with Linkin Park bandmates Brad Delson and Rob Bourdon as well as with members of the band Hoobastank. By the end of high school, Bourdon had become involved in their musical ventures. The trio formed the band Xero, and began to make a more serious attempt to pursue a career in the music industry.

After high school, Shinoda enrolled in the Art Center College of Design to study graphic design and illustration. It was here that he made the acquaintance of DJ and turntablist Joseph Hahn, who, along with Delson's college-mate Dave "Phoenix" Farrell, was soon added to Xero's line-up. It was also here that he experienced a form of identity crisis. Years later, in an interview he said:

"I think it was probably in college that I realized that there was a difference between Japanese and Japanese-American. That's important to realize. It's not the same thing and then eventually with Linkin Park, I toured in Japan. I've been there now I think four times. I remember the first time I went, how familiar it seemed, just getting out of the plane, it smelled like my aunt's house, in the airport, it smelled like Japan. I don't know if anybody else even noticed it but I walked out of the plane and thought this is definitely familiar to me, didn't even see anything yet. And then going to Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Nagoya, you just recognize things about the way people act, the small things that people do such as how you'll grab a piece of paper. There are things that are more obvious like taking somebody's business card with two hands. You don't do that in the States. When I saw somebody do that I went, "Oh yeah, my uncle always does that," you know. There are little things that culturally come from Japan but they also exist in Japanese American culture and it made me feel like the connection was there and I kind of hadn't realized how much of it was there."

Shinoda managed to graduate from college with a bachelor's degree in illustration a year in advance, securing himself a job as a graphic designer instantly. With his background as a graphic artist, Shinoda has taken it upon himself in designing all of Linkin Park's artwork with Hahn, and has even designed the album cover for Styles of Beyond's debut album, ''2000 Fold''. In later years he would go on to showcase his art skills; he had his debut art showcase (Diamonds Spades Hearts & Clubs) at Gallery 1988 in Los Angeles in the time leading up to Linkin Park's album ''Minutes to Midnight''.

Linkin Park

Shinoda's band brought in second vocalist Chester Bennington, replacing Mark Wakefield. From the onset, Shinoda was closely involved in the technical aspects of the band's recordings, and over the subsequent releases that role continued to expand. Shinoda, with guitarist Brad Delson, engineered and produced the band's Hybrid Theory EP, and performed similar roles in the recording of the Hybrid Theory album. Mike executively organized and oversaw the band's remix album Reanimation (2002), contributing his own production remixes that he made in his home studio for "Crawling" and "Pushing Me Away." In his spare time, he produced and performed on a song by The X-Ecutioners entitled "It's Goin' Down."

On the second Linkin Park Warner Bros. studio release ''Meteora'' (2003) Shinoda continued to expand upon his duties as a musician and studio technician/engineer. Additionally, for the backbone of the album artwork, Shinoda collaborated with graffiti artist DELTA, graphic designer Frank Maddocks, and band-mate Joe Hahn.

By the release of the Linkin Park and Jay-Z 'mash-up' album ''Collision Course'' in 2004, Shinoda's involvement in the creation of the albums continued to grow. He produced and mixed the album, which won a Grammy Award for "best rap / song collaboration" in 2006.

The band released their next album, ''Minutes to Midnight'', on May 14, 2007. On this album, Shinoda shared a production credit with producer Rick Rubin, overseeing the musical evolution of the band's sound. This album was also the first time that Shinoda, best known for his rapping, sang a featured vocal. Mike sang in the songs "In Between" and the b-side song, "No Roads Left," as well as rapping and singing in the songs "Bleed It Out" and "Hands Held High." Despite the rarity of Shinoda-fronted singing tracks, music magazine Hit Parader ranked Mike at number 72 of the Top 100 Metal Vocalists of All Time. Mike and Rick Rubin again shared a production credit for Linkin Park's latest album, ''A Thousand Suns'', released on September 14, 2010.

Fort Minor

Shinoda formed a side project named "Fort Minor" between 2003 and 2004 because he could not demonstrate as much of his hip-hop background in Linkin Park. He explained the name of his project in an interview:

The debut album from Fort Minor, titled ''The Rising Tied'', was released on November 13, 2005, and includes guest appearances from Styles of Beyond, Lupe Fiasco, Common, Black Thought of The Roots, John Legend, Holly Brook, Jonah Matranga, Celph Titled, and features Jay-Z (Shawn Carter) as an executive producer.

For the NBA 2006–2007 season, "Remember the Name", the second single from ''The Rising Tied'', became the soundtrack for NBA Overtime on TNT. It was an NBA remix version, and remains the staple song for NBA on TNT to this day. Furthermore the Big East used "Remember the Name" as its theme song for the Big East Basketball Tournament in 2006.

He also scored a Top 10 smash with the surprise hit single "Where'd You Go", which peaked at #4 on Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Shinoda provided several original score selections to the 2005 MTV VMAs. Lil Jon also provided original music, but not on any of the same tracks

Fort Minor won an MTV VMA for "Best Ringtone" in 2006, and was featured in the following films and TV programs (2005–2006 and 2010): Entourage, Boston Legal, Gridiron Gang, Freedom Writers, Friday Night Lights (TV), The Karate Kid, and Numbers.

Shinoda has also continued his Fort Minor musical style in an executive producer role on the upcoming Styles Of Beyond album, "''Reseda Beach''" He is contributing music and vocals to the album, which was slated for release sometime in 2009. However, the album has not been released till date and Styles of Beyond is under hiatus.

Art and painting

Mike was the youngest of his graduating class from Art Center College of Design of Pasadena in 1998, with a Bachelor of Arts in Illustration. He has had a hand in most artistic facets of Linkin Park's imagery, including album artwork, band merchandise, web design, and on-stage production art.

During time off in 2003, he did a collaborative "remix" shoe for DC Shoes, remixing the "Clientele." He reworked the colors and materials for the shoe, and additionally designed all the packaging and print advertisements. The following year, he also designed a customizable Kid Robot "Munny" doll for a charity auction.

In 2004, Shinoda created a series of ten paintings which became the basis of the Fort Minor album ''The Rising Tied.'' That series became the backbone for the packaging of the album, and was featured in Shinoda's first public art show "Diamonds Spades Hearts & Clubs." In addition to the ten Fort Minor pieces, the show also featured thirteen more original works and five collaborative pieces. “Diamonds Spades Hearts & Clubs” opened at Gallery 1988 on Sunday, November 19, 2006.

Additionally in 2004, Shinoda started a college scholarship at Art Center College of Design to benefit future illustration and graphic design students. Named the Michael K. Shinoda Endowed Scholarship, it is awarded based on financial need and merit. The scholarship was awarded for the first time in 2006. The scholarship fund is made possible through the sale of his original artwork on his website, art shows and his DC Shoes projects.

2008 has proved to be a busy year thus far artistically for Mike. On July 11, Shinoda’s second public art show “Glorious Excess (BORN)” premiered at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles. The show included nine new pieces, with an exclusive signing on opening night. The show served as part one of the “Glorious Excess” two-part series, with the second installment “Glorious Excess (DIES)” due at JANM at August 22, 2009.

Concerning the inspiration behind the Glorious Excess series, Mike stated that it:

"Got to a point where the pervasiveness of “celebrity news” concerned me. It seemed like it has jumped out of its niche into places where it doesn’t belong. I would be watching the news, and thinking, “of all the things going on in the world right now, why are they covering so-and-so’s breakup?” It didn’t make sense to me. Add to that the fact that I’m supposed to somehow “belong” to that celebrity group—and I really don’t feel like I do in a lot of ways—and you can see how the topic started to become really interesting to me. The Glorious Excess (BORN) show was my way of diving into those topics, trying to find answers. It follows a central “celebrity” character, who is filthy rich, slightly violent, and famous without any particular skill or talent."

Also in 2008, Mike partnered up with DC Shoes again on a second DC Remix Series project. The project would feature a "great juxtaposition of Mike's unique influences: accomplished artist versus recording-breaking musician, American upbringing versus Japanese heritage." The MS/DC limited edition remix has two different versions – Xander and Pride. Roughly 2000 pairs of the limited edition shoes were made available for purchase when the sneaker was released on August 1, 2008.

In an interview with Sneaker Freaker Magazine, Shinoda had this to say about the latest DC Shoe project:

"This remix is a little slimmer than most of DC’s skate shoes; the Xander feels almost like the skate shoes I grew up wearing in the late 80s. But the art brings it up to date—my work is laser-etched into the panels on the side of the shoe, and the sole is a clear gum sole with a koi fish pattern, and four-color artwork beneath. That way, when you’re walking, and your foot lifts up, it’s a little surprise under there. We also took the time to add extra padding and a satin inner lining to make it as comfortable as possible. They come with three pairs of lightly waxed laces instead of two, because I like to flip up the look sometimes. Each pair also comes with a booklet of my art."

Production

Shinoda produced The Rising Tied, the debut album by his side-project Fort Minor. He has also produced tracks for albums by Lupe Fiasco and Styles of Beyond, as well as producing or co-producing all of Linkin Park's non-studio albums, including ''Reanimation'', ''Hybrid Theory EP'', the collaborative EP with Jay-Z, ''Collision Course'', and for the first time producing a studio album in 2007, the group's third studio release ''Minutes to Midnight''. In 2004 Shinoda, with drumming assistance by his Linkin Park band mate Rob Bourdon, remixed "Enjoy the Silence" by Depeche Mode. Shinoda and Bourdon also worked together to create an instrumental piece entitled "Lockjaw" while previewing Digidesign's Pro Tools 8 software. Some other notable production credits include:

Styles of Beyond – "Marco Polo" (from the album ''2000 Fold'')

The X-Ecutioners – "It's Goin' Down" (from the album ''Built from Scratch'')

Depeche Mode – "Enjoy the Silence 04" (remixed and produced)

Lupe Fiasco – "The Instrumental" (from the album ''Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor'')

Styles of Beyond featuring Celph Titled – "You Cannot Fuck With This" (from the ''Razor Tag'' mixtape)

Styles of Beyond – "Hard [MS Remix]" (from the ''Razor Tag'' mixtape)

Styles of Beyond – "Second To None" (from the upcoming album ''Reseda Beach'')

"My December" – Linkin Park

"High Voltage" – Linkin Park

Reanimation – Linkin Park

"What I've Done (Distorted Remix)" – Linkin Park

Scored the 2005 MTV VMAs (contributed all original music)

"''Fort Minor: We Major''" Mixtape – including S.C.O.M., Bloc Party, Dolla, 100 Degrees, Spraypaint & Inkpens (feat. Lupe Fiasco and Ghostface Killah)

Busta Rhymes feat. Linkin Park – "We Made It" (co-produced with Cool & Dre)

"L.O.A.T.R." (M. Shinoda Remix) – Linkin Park

"Lockjaw" – Linkin Park

"Death to Analog" (Mike Shinoda Remix) – Julien-K (from the album ''Death To Digital'')

"New Divide" – Linkin Park

"Gold Guns Girls" (Mike Shinoda remix) – Metric

"Shoot First" – Apathy

"Resurrection" – Lupe Fiasco & Kenna

"Never Let Me Down" – Kenna

"Not Alone" – Linkin Park (From Download to Donate for Haiti, an initiative by Music For Relief)

Cypress Hill – "Carry Me Away" (from the album ''Rise Up'')

"Linkin Park: 8-Bit Rebellion!" – composed 8-bit soundtrack

"Issho Ni" for Download To Donate for Japan, a charity contribution for the 2011 Japan earthquake

Other musical activities

In 2005, Mike hosted the ''Rock Phenomenon'' Mixtape CD with DJ Vlad and Roc Raida. The CD is the first (and to date, only) in DJ Vlad's ''Rock Phenomenon'' series (which itself is a spin-off of Vlad's ''Rap Phenomenon'' Mixtape series), and features a Mash-Up of Linkin Park's ''Papercut'', and David Banner's ''Like a Pimp (Remix)''. The Mixtape was re-released on July 10, 2007, with new artwork.

In October 2008 Mike and Mark Wakefield, former vocalist of Linkin Park back when they were named Xero, recorded and released the song "Barack Your World" under the name White Pegacorn.

For the 2006 Grammy awards, Mike and Brad Delson assembled the mashup track of Numb/Encore and "Yesterday" by The Beatles to be performed live by Jay-Z, Linkin Park and Paul McCartney.

Mike scored the MTV VMAs in 2005. Lil’ Jon also contributed, but they did not collaborate; The tracks were separate. Mike was an honorary parade marshall in Los Angeles Nisei Week, 2005. Mike was awarded the Japanese American National Museum’s Award of Excellence in 2006.

Influences

Shinoda's musical influences and favorites include U2, The Police, Boogie Down Productions, Led Zeppelin, Nine Inch Nails, and Dr. Dre. As a visual artist his influences include Mark Ryden, Corey Sandelius, and Banksy.

Personal life

Mike Shinoda has been married to children's author Anna Hillinger since May 10, 2003. The couple have one child, a son named Otis Akio Shinoda. According to Shinoda, the Fort Minor song "Where'd You Go" was written for Anna.

In 2004 he was featured on an episode of ''Punk'd'' in which a fire hydrant was placed next to his Acura SUV during a pretend fire.

In an interview talking about his song "Kenji" from the ''Rising Tied'' album, he revealed that his father was born during the Second World War. Shinoda is a third generation Japanese American. His father was born in the United States and was interned during World War II. Regarding the “Glue” nickname: someone in the band called Mike “The Glue” saying he was the one that “held everything together.” The other nicknames (Spike Minoda, Cobra Holda) are just funny, nonsensical." In 2009, Mike received an Honorary Doctorate Of Humane Letters (H.D.L) from Art Center College Of Design. "I suppose this could also mean that my name at the top of the page should officially read: Michael Kenji “Mike” Shinoda, H.D.L." EWP honored Mike with a Visionary Award and dinner in 2010.

References

External links

Mike Shinoda's official website

Shinoda's official LPN page from LinkinPark.com

Mike Shinoda is interviewed by SUBvert magazine about his successful career

Category:1977 births Category:American heavy metal guitarists Category:American heavy metal singers Category:American rock guitarists Category:American keyboardists Category:American male singers Category:American rappers Category:American record producers Category:American singer-songwriters Category:American rappers of Asian descent Category:American musicians of European descent Category:American musicians of Japanese descent Category:American people of Japanese descent Category:Linkin Park members Category:Living people Category:Musicians from California Category:Nu metal singers Category:People from the Greater Los Angeles Area

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name	Pusha T
background	solo_singer
birth name	Terrence Thornton
alias	Pusha, Terrar,
birth date	May 14, 1977
birth place	The Bronx, New York City, United States
origin	Virginia Beach, Virginia, United States
death date
genre	Hip hop
occupation	Rapper
years active
label	GOOD, Re-Up, Decon
associated acts	Clipse, Re-Up Gang, Kanye West, Pharell Williams, N.E.R.D., The Neptunes
url
notable instruments	}}

Terrence Thornton (born May 14, 1977) better known by his stage name Pusha T is an American recording artist, occasional actor and one half of the critically acclaimed Hip-Hop duo Clipse. He is also the co-founder and co-chief executive officer (CEO) of Re-Up Records along with his brother Gene 'Malice' Thornton. In September 2010 he announced that he has signed to Kanye West's GOOD Music label and on March 21, 2011 released his first solo mixtape, ''Fear of God''.

Biography

Early life and career beginnings as Clipse

Pusha T was born in The Bronx, New York City but soon relocated to Norfolk, Virginia where he and his brother were raised. In 1992 Terrence and his brother Gene formed the duo now internationally known as Clipse. With help from Pharell Williams the group eventually signed to Elektra Records in 1997 and released ''Exclusive Audio Footage'', their only album under that label. After three more albums under various record labels both Malice and Pusha T announced that they were taking time off from Clipse to focus on their own respective solo projects.

2010-present: Solo career, GOOD Music and Fear of God

Pusha T signed exclusively with NUE Agency, the week of December 16, 2010. Following his signing to GOOD Music, Pusha T has been featured on a number of fellow label mates' projects such as Kanye West's ''My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy'' and many of the G.O.O.D. Friday tracks. On March 21, 2011 Pusha T released his first solo mixtape, ''Fear of God'' to critical acclaim. Currently he is working on his EP ''Fear of God: Let Us Pray'', which includes four songs from the mixtape and five original ones. The EP was set to released on June 21, 2011, but as of now no release date is set. He is also working on his debut solo album, yet to be titled, which includes tracks produced by The Neptunes, Kanye West, Bangladesh, Ryan Leslie and Alex da Kid. Pusha T has stated that after his solo album and the Re-Up Gang mixtape, ''Long Live the Cane'', he and his brother Malice will release another album as the Clipse. On July 8, 2011, the first offering off ''Fear of God: Let Us Pray'' leaked onto the internet. The song, titled "Trouble on My Mind" features Odd Future frontman, Tyler, The Creator. The music video was later released on July 20th. On August 31st, 2011, Pusha signed a solo record deal with Def Jam.

Controversy

Consequence

After releasing the first offering off his solo mixtape, "My God", former GOOD Music labelmate Consequence took to Twitter and claimed Pusha T stole his flow and lyrics from a song of his that Pusha T was supposed to appear on titled "The Last Supper". On July 22, 2011 Consequence released a song titled "The Plagurist Society" where he takes shots and questions Pusha T’s coke-dealing raps. Towards the end of the record the Queens native promises to take aim at Kanye West next saying "You're nothing but a body shield, for that coward from the mid-west/ so yes you can bet, that your boss is next". Pusha T responded to the diss when he appeared on Chicago’s 107.5 WGCI’s The Morning Riot and said nobody is looking for Consequence, as for if he will respond on a record he went on to say "At the end of the day I am an artist and this whole rap thing is fun to me, so I can't say you won't hear nothing, but to go back and forth with him, it's not right, I won't get anything out of it." Consequence later called in to Chicago’s WGCI’s The Morning Riot in retaliation to the remarks Pusha T made about him. He also premiered a song titled "Everybody Told Me 2 (Straighten It Out)" where he disses West, Pusha T and GOOD Music in general. Since then Pusha T responded to Consequence on a record. The song was the remix to Ace Hood's "Go 'N' Get It" which also featured Beanie Sigel, Busta Rhymes and Styles P. In the song Pusha raps "Consequence, nigga, talk is cheap You dont want a problem? Off the beef Before I off his ass with his awful teeth".

Acting career

Pusha T is set to appear on four episodes of the second season of the HBO series How to Make It in America. He will be playing the role of a drug dealer.

Discography

References

Category:1977 births Category:African American rappers Category:American hip hop musicians Category:Living people Category:People from the Bronx Category:Rappers from New York City

Name	50 Cent
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Curtis James Jackson III
Origin	South Jamaica, Queens, New York, U.S.
Birth date	July 06, 1975
Genre	Hip hop
Occupation	Rapper
Years active	1997–present
Label	Aftermath, Shady, G-Unit
Associated acts	G-Unit, Dr. Dre, Eminem, Sha Money XL, DJ Whoo Kid, Snoop Dogg
Website	}}

Curtis James Jackson III (born July 6, 1975), better known by his stage name 50 Cent, is an American rapper, entrepreneur, investor, record producer, and actor. He rose to fame with the release of his albums ''Get Rich or Die Tryin''' (2003) and ''The Massacre'' (2005). His album ''Get Rich or Die Tryin''' has been certified eight times platinum by the RIAA.

Born in South Jamaica, Queens, Jackson began drug dealing at the age of twelve during the 1980s crack epidemic. After leaving drug dealing to pursue a rap career, he was shot at and struck by nine bullets during an incident in 2000. After releasing his album ''Guess Who's Back?'' in 2002, Jackson was discovered by rapper Eminem and signed to Interscope Records. With the help of Eminem and Dr. Dre, who produced his first major commercial successes, Jackson became one of the world's highest selling rappers. In 2003, he founded the record label G-Unit Records, which signed several successful rappers such as Young Buck, Lloyd Banks, and Tony Yayo.

Jackson has engaged in feuds with other rappers including Ja Rule, Nas, Fat Joe, Jadakiss, Cam'ron, Puff Daddy, Rick Ross, and former G-Unit members The Game and Young Buck. He has also pursued an acting career, appearing in the semi-autobiographical film ''Get Rich or Die Tryin''' in 2005, the Iraq War film ''Home of the Brave'' in 2006, and ''Righteous Kill'' in 2008. 50 Cent was ranked as the sixth-best artist of the 2000s by ''Billboard'' magazine. The magazine also ranked him as the fourth top male artist and as the third top rapper behind Eminem and Nelly. ''Billboard'' magazine also ranked him as the sixth best and most successful Hot 100 Artist of the 2000s and as the number one rap artist of the 2000s. ''Billboard'' ranked his album ''Get Rich or Die Tryin''' as the twelfth best album of the 2000s and his album ''The Massacre'' as the 37th best album of the 2000s. As of September 2011, 50 Cent is working on his fifth studio album, which is set to be released in 2012.

Early life

Curtis Jackson III grew up in the South Jamaica neighborhood of Queens, in New York City. He grew up without a father and was raised by his mother, Sabrina, who gave birth to him at the age of fifteen.

Sabrina, a cocaine dealer, raised Jackson until the age of eight, when she was killed in 1983. Twenty-seven at the time, she became unconscious after someone drugged her drink. She was then left for dead after the gas in her apartment was turned on and the windows shut closed.

After her death, Jackson moved into his grandparents' house with his eight aunts and uncles. He recalls, "My grandmother told me, 'Your mother's not coming home. She's not gonna come back to pick you up. You're gonna stay with us now.' That's when I started adjusting to the streets a little bit".

Jackson began boxing around the age of eleven.

At fourteen, a neighbor opened a boxing gym for local kids.

"When I wasn't killing time in school, I was sparring in the gym or selling crack on the strip", he recalled. In the mid 1980s, he competed in the Junior Olympics as an amateur boxer. He recounts, "I was competitive in the ring and hip-hop is competitive too... I think rappers condition themselves like boxers, so they all kind of feel like they're the champ". At the age of twelve, Jackson began dealing narcotics when his grandparents thought he was at after-school programs. He also took guns and drug money to school. In the tenth grade, he was caught by metal detectors at Andrew Jackson High School. He later stated, "I was embarrassed that I got arrested like that... After I got arrested I stopped hiding it. I was telling my grandmother [openly], 'I sell drugs.'"

Following time spent in a correctional boot camp, Jackson adopted the nickname "50 Cent" as a metaphor for "change". The name was derived from Kelvin Martin, a 1980s Brooklyn robber known as "50 Cent". Jackson chose the name "because it says everything I want it to say. I'm the same kind of person 50 Cent was. I provide for myself by any means".

Music career

1996–99: Early career

Jackson started rapping in a friend's basement where he used turntables to record over instrumentals. In 1996, a friend introduced him to Jam Master Jay of Run-DMC who was organizing his label Jam Master Jay Records.

Jay taught him how to count bars, write choruses, structure songs, and how to make a record. Jackson's first official appearance was on a song titled "React" with the group Onyx on their 1998 album ''Shut 'Em Down''. He credited Jam Master Jay as an influence who helped him improve his ability to write hooks. Jay produced Jackson's first album; however, it was never released.

In 1999, after leaving Jam Master Jay, the platinum-selling producers Trackmasters took notice of Jackson and signed him to Columbia Records. They sent him to a studio in Upstate New York where he produced thirty-six songs in two weeks. Eighteen were included on his unofficially released album, ''Power of the Dollar'' in 2000. He also started the now-defunct Hollow Point Entertainment with former G-Unit affiliate Bang 'Em Smurf.

Jackson's popularity started to increase after the successful but controversial underground single, "How to Rob", which he wrote in half an hour while in a car on the way to a studio. The track comically explains how he would rob famous artists. He explained the reasoning behind song's content as, "There's a hundred artists on that label, you gotta separate yourself from that group and make yourself relevant". Rappers Jay-Z, Kurupt, Sticky Fingaz, Big Pun, DMX, Wyclef Jean and the Wu-Tang Clan replied to the song and Nas, who received the track positively, invited Jackson to travel on a promotional tour for his ''Nastradamus'' album. The song was intended to be released with "Thug Love" featuring Destiny's Child, but two days before he was scheduled to film the "Thug Love" music video, Jackson was shot and confined to a hospital due to his injuries.

2000–01: Shooting

On May 24, 2000, Jackson was attacked by a gunman, alleged to be Darryl "Hommo" Baum, outside his grandmother's former home in South Jamaica, Queens. He went into a friend's car, but was asked to return to the house to get jewelry.

His son was in the house, while his grandmother was in the front yard. Upon returning to the back seat of the car and already seated, another car pulled up nearby. An assailant then walked up to Jackson's left side with a 9mm handgun and fired nine shots at close range. He was shot nine times: in the hand (a round hit his right thumb, to where the bullet passed through and out his little finger), arm, hip, both legs, chest, and his face (his left cheek). The face wound resulted in a swollen tongue, the loss of a wisdom tooth, and a small slur in his voice. His friend also sustained a gunshot wound to the hand. They were driven to the hospital where Jackson spent thirteen days.

Baum, the alleged shooter, was killed three weeks later.

Baum was also Mike Tyson's close friend and bodyguard.

Jackson recalled the incident saying, "It happens so fast that you don't even get a chance to shoot back.... I was scared the whole time.... I was looking in the rear-view mirror like, 'Oh @#!*% , somebody shot me in the face! It burns, burns, burns.'" In his autobiography, ''From Pieces to Weight: Once upon a Time in Southside Queens'', he wrote, "After I got shot nine times at close range and didn't die, I started to think that I must have a purpose in life... How much more damage could that shell have done? Give me an inch in this direction or that one, and I'm gone". He used a walker for the first six weeks and fully recovered after five months. When he left the hospital, he stayed in the Poconos with his then-girlfriend and son. His workout regime helped him attain his muscular physique.

While in the hospital, Jackson signed a publishing deal with Columbia Records. However, he was dropped from the label and "blacklisted" in the recording industry because of his song "Ghetto Qu'ran".

Unable to find a studio to work with in the U.S, he traveled to Canada. Along with his business partner Sha Money XL, he recorded over thirty songs for mixtapes, with the purpose of building a reputation.

According to Shady Records A&R; Marc Labelle in an interview with HitQuarters, Jackson shrewdly used the mixtape circuit to his own advantage saying, "He took all the hottest beats from every artist and flipped them with better hooks. They then got into all the markets on the mixtapes and all the mixtape DJs were messing with them." Jackson's popularity rose and in 2002, he released material independently on the mixtape, ''Guess Who's Back?''. Beginning to attract interest, and now backed by G-Unit, Jackson continued to release music including ''50 Cent Is the Future''. The mixtape revisited material by Jay-Z and Raphael Saadiq.

2002–09: Rise to fame

In 2002, Eminem listened to a copy of Jackson's ''Guess Who's Back?'' CD. He received the CD through Jackson's attorney, who was working with Eminem's manager Paul Rosenberg. Impressed with the album, Eminem invited Jackson to fly to Los Angeles, where he was introduced to Dr. Dre. After signing a $1 million record deal, Jackson released the mixtape, ''No Mercy, No Fear''. It featured one new track, "Wanksta", which was put on Eminem's ''8 Mile'' soundtrack. He was also signed to Chris Lighty's Violator Management and Sha Money XL's Money Management Group.

In February 2003, Jackson released his commercial debut album, ''Get Rich or Die Tryin'''. Allmusic described it as "probably the most hyped debut album by a rap artist in about a decade". ''Rolling Stone'' noted the album for its "dark synth grooves, buzzy keyboards and a persistently funky bounce" with Jackson complementing the production in "an unflappable, laid-back flow".

It debuted at number one on the ''Billboard'' 200, selling 872,000 copies in the first four days. The lead single, "In da Club", which ''The Source'' noted for its "blaring horns, funky organs, guitar riffs and sparse hand claps", broke a ''Billboard'' record as the most listened-to song in radio history within a week.

Interscope granted Jackson his own label, G-Unit Records in 2003. He signed Lloyd Banks, Tony Yayo, and Young Buck as the established members of G-Unit. The Game was later signed under a joint venture with Dr. Dre's Aftermath Entertainment.

In March 2005, Jackson's second commercial album, ''The Massacre'', sold 1.14 million copies in the first four days-the highest in an abbreviated sales cycle- and peaked at number one on the ''Billboard'' 200 for six weeks.

He became the first solo artist to have three singles on the ''Billboard'' top five in the same week with "Candy Shop", "Disco Inferno", and "How We Do". ''Rolling Stone'' noted that "50's secret weapon is his singing voice - the deceptively amateur-sounding tenor croon that he deploys on almost every chorus".

After The Game's departure, Jackson signed singer Olivia and rap veterans Mobb Deep to G-Unit Records. Spider Loc, M.O.P., 40 Glocc and Young Hot Rod later joined the label. Jackson expressed interest in working with rappers outside of G-Unit, such as Lil' Scrappy of BME, LL Cool J from Def Jam, Mase from Bad Boy, and Freeway of Roc-A-Fella, some of whom he recorded with. In September 2007, he released his third album ''Curtis'', which was inspired by his life before ''Get Rich or Die Tryin'''. It debuted at number two on the ''Billboard'' 200, selling 691,000 units in the first week, behind Kanye West's ''Graduation'', whom he had a sales competition with, as both albums were released on the same day.

He confirmed on TRL on September 10, 2008 that his fourth studio album, ''Before I Self Destruct'', will be "done and released in November".

On May 18, 2009, Jackson released a song entitled "Ok, You're Right". The song was produced by Dr. Dre and was included in ''Before I Self Destruct''.

In Fall 2009, 50 Cent appeared in the new season of VH1's Behind The Music.

On September 3, 2009 months upon the release of his "Before I Self Destruct" album 50 Cent posted a video for the Soundkillers' Phoenix produced track "Flight 187" which introduced his mixtape, the 50th LAW, and was also featured as a bonus track on his iTunes release of Before I Self Destruct. The song ignited speculation that there was tension between rapper 50 Cent and Jay Z for Jackson's comments in the song.

2010–present

In an interview with the British entertainment website ContactMusic, 50 Cent announced that he was working on a dance album named ''Black Magic''. 50 Cent said he was inspired by the European nightclubs. "First they played hip-hop which suddenly changed to uptempo songs, known as Eurodance". He went on The Invitation Tour in the summer of 2010, in support of ''Before I Self Destruct'' album, and the then shelved ''Black Magic'' album. He "recorded 20 songs to a whole different album concept" before he put those to the side and did something different.

50 Cent revealed that he wanted his new album to have the same "aggression" as his debut record, ''Get Rich or Die Tryin'''.

He later tweeted that the album was "80 percent done", and stated that fans can expect the album in the summer of 2011; however, the album has been delayed to 2012 at the earliest, due to tensions and disagreements at Interscope Records, Later 50 Cent said that he will release his album in November 2011 and it has also been confirmed that "Black Magic" will not be the album's title. 50 Cent has already confirmed that Eminem will appear on the album, but he also confirmed that he has been working with new producers such as Boi-1da and Alex da Kid. Cardiak, who produced Lloyd Banks' “Start It Up”, also confirmed that he had produced a song for the upcoming album.

DJ Whoo Kid confirmed in an interview that 50 Cent was filming a new movie with Robert DeNiro in New Orleans.

50 Cent released the first song from his fifth studio album, titled "Outlaw", to the Internet on June 16, 2011.

The single was produced by Cardiak.

It was released to iTunes on July 19, 2011, although 50 Cent confirmed through his Twitter account that the song was not the album's first single.

50 Cent is set to release a book titled ''Playground''.

Unlike his previous literary efforts — which focus on his life story and the rules of power — this time he's aiming at a teen audience with a semi-autobiographical novel about bullying. According to a statement from the book's publisher, the first-person novel is slated for release in January 2012 and will tell the story of a 13-year-old schoolyard bully "who finds redemption as he faces what he's done."

50 Cent has promised to deliver his fifth studio album album over the past few years, but the LP may be delayed until 2012. In a series of tweets, 50 Cent explained that him and his label Interscope Records aren’t on the same page on how to roll out the album and that he’s delaying its release until they see eye to eye.

50 Cent later suggested that his album will be releasing in November 2011, along with his headphone line ''SMS by 50''.

50 Cent spoke to MTV in relation to the possibility of leaving Interscope Records. "I don't know," 50 told MTV News when asked if he would ink back with Interscope once his five-album deal was fulfilled. "It will all be clear in the negotiations following me turning this actual album in. And, of course, the performance and how they actually treat the work will determine whether you still want to stay in that position or not."

On June 20, 2011, 50 Cent announced that he will release an LP titled ''Before I Self Destruct II''. The announced sequel to his 2009 LP is suggested to be released after his fifth studio album.

On June 26, 2011, 50 Cent planned to shoot a music video for the lead single from his fifth studio album titled ''I'm On It''. However, the music video never surfaced.

50 Cent spoke to Shade45 in relation guest appearances for his fifth studio album. "I did four songs in Detroit with Eminem. I did two with Just Blaze, a Boi-1da joint, and I did something with Alex da Kid. We made two that are definite singles and the other two are the kinds of records that we been making, more aimed at my core audience, more aggressive, more of a different kind of energy to it."

In September 2011, 50 Cent released a song titled "Street King Energy Track #7" in attempt to promote his charitable energy drink ''Street King''.

On September 28, 2011, it was confirmed that 50 Cent is shooting a music video for his lead single from his fifth studio album titled "Girls Go Wild", which features Jeremih.

On October 26, 2011, 50 Cent announced that his fifth studio album will be released in December 2011. However, the album was delayed, and it was announced that the album will now be released on July 2, 2012.

Other ventures

Jackson has established himself in a variety of fields. In November 2003, he signed a five-year deal with Reebok to distribute a "G-Unit Sneakers" line as part of his G-Unit Clothing Company. He provided the voice-over as the protagonist in the video game ''50 Cent: Bulletproof'', which was released for PlayStation 2, Xbox, and the PlayStation Portable.

Its sequel, ''50 Cent: Blood on the Sand'', was released in early 2009. He worked with Glacéau to create a vitamin water drink called Formula 50. In 2007, Coca-Cola purchased Glacéau for US$4.1 billion. ''Forbes'' estimated Jackson, who owns a stake in the company, earned $100 million from the deal after taxes. He has teamed up with Right Guard to launch a body spray called Pure 50 RGX Body Spray and a condom line called Magic Stick Condoms, in which he planned to donate part of the proceeds to HIV awareness.

Jackson has signed a multi-year deal with Steiner Sports to sell his memorabilia.

In 2005, Jackson made a cameo appearance on ''The Simpsons'' episode "Pranksta Rap", in which he makes light of his legal troubles. The same year, he starred alongside Terrence Howard in the semi-autobiographical film ''Get Rich or Die Tryin'''. He starred in the 2006 film ''Home of the Brave'', as a soldier returning home from the Iraq War, traumatized after killing an Iraqi woman.

Jackson is working on a role as a fighter in an Angola State Prison in ''Spectacular Regret'' alongside Nicolas Cage, and starred opposite Al Pacino and Robert De Niro in 2008's ''Righteous Kill'', a movie regarding a police death.

He also started the film production companies G-Unit Films in 2007 and Cheetah Vision in 2008.

In August 2007, Jackson announced plans to launch a dietary supplement company in conjunction with his movie ''Spectacular Regret''.

In August 2005, shortly before appearing in ''Get Rich or Die Tryin''', Jackson published an autobiography entitled ''From Pieces to Weight: Once upon a Time in Southside Queens''. In it, Jackson explores the cultural and economic forces that led him to sell cocaine and crack, details his entrepreneurship as a drug-dealer and then as a rapper, and reflects on his own ethos and on society.

On January 4, 2007, Jackson launched his G-Unit Books imprint at the Time Warner Building. He also co-wrote ''The Ski Mask Way'', a novel about a small-time drug dealer who attempts to rob his employers, which is to be turned into a film. Jackson said he read Robert Greene's ''The 33 Strategies of War'' and worked with the author on a book titled ''The 50th Law'', an urban take on ''The 48 Laws of Power''. In May 2008, Jackson met billionaire Patrice Motsepe to forge a joint venture selling 50 Cent-branded platinum.

In 2008, Jackson started a reality television show on MTV titled ''50 Cent: The Money and the Power''; the winning contestant, Ryan Mayberry, won a $100,000 investment from Jackson.

On September 8, 2009, he published his book ''The 50th Law''.

In 2010, Jackson's film company Cheetah Vision landed $200 million in funding.

In July 2011, 50 Cent revealed his initiative to provide food for millions of people in Africa by 2016. 50 Cent teamed up with Pure Growth Partners to launch a charitable energy drink called ''Street King'' that will help aid in combating world hunger. For every purchase of Street King, a portion of the sales will go to providing a daily meal to an underprivileged child around the world. The partnership coincides with Fiddy’s mission statement of feeding a billion people in Africa over the next five years.

“50 Cent and I share a common vision: To address the world’s problems through smart and sustainable business models,” said Chris Clark, the founder and CEO of Pure Growth Partners. “With the rampant starvation in Africa and hunger afflicting children worldwide, we need socially responsible businesses that affect real change now more than ever.”

50 concurs, stating, “I’m inspired by Clarke’s vision and innovative approaches to tackling serious issues. It’s our mission with Street King to really change children’s lives around the world.”

Jackson founded SMS Audio, selling headphones with the name Street by 50. He has pledged to donate a portion of the sales to charity.

Personal life

Jackson has a tattoo of "Marquise" with an axe on his right biceps. "The axe is 'cause I'm a warrior. I don't want him to be one, though," he explains. He also has "50", "Southside", and "Cold World" inscribed on his back because "I'm a product of that environment. It's on my back, though, so it's all behind me."

Family

On October 13, 1997, Jackson's then-girlfriend Shaniqua Tompkins gave birth to a son, Marquise Jackson.

The birth of his son changed Jackson's outlook on life: "When my son came into my life, my priorities changed, because I wanted to have the relationship with him, that I didn't have with my father." He credited his son for inspiring his career and being "motivation to go in a different direction".

Politics

In 2005, Jackson expressed support for President George Walker Bush after rapper Kanye West criticized him for the slow response in assisting the Hurricane Katrina victims.

If his felony convictions did not prevent him from voting, he claimed he would have voted for Bush.

He later stated that Bush "has less compassion than the average human. By all means, I don't aspire to be like George Bush."

Wealth

In 2007, Jackson was the second wealthiest performer in the rap industry, behind Jay-Z. He resides in Farmington, Connecticut, in the former mansion of ex-boxer Mike Tyson.He is consistently ranked among the richest figures in the American hip hop scene. In 2011, Jackson was ranked the fifth richest figure in American hip hop with a net worth estimated at $100 million.

He put the mansion for sale at $18.5 million to move closer to his son who lives in Long Island with his ex-girlfriend. On October 12, 2007, the Mayor of Bridgeport, Connecticut declared it "50 Cent Curtis Jackson Day". He was honored with a key to the city and an official proclamation.

One of his homes in New York purchased for 2.4 million dollars in January 2007 and at the center of a lawsuit between Jackson and ex-girlfriend Shaniqua Tompkins caught fire on May 30, 2008 while he was out of town filming for a movie in Louisiana.

In December 2008 Jackson told the Canadian press that he had been affected by the recession, losing several million dollars in the stock market as an investor. He also went on to say that he had been unable to sell his Connecticut mansion and pushed ''Before I Self-Destruct'' back because of the recent economic downturn.

Legal issues

On June 29, 1994, Jackson was arrested for helping to sell four vials of cocaine to an undercover police officer. He was arrested again three weeks later when police searched his home and found heroin, ten ounces of crack cocaine, and a starter gun.

He was sentenced to three to nine years in prison, but managed to serve six months in a shock incarceration boot camp where he earned his GED. Jackson said that he did not use cocaine himself, he only sold it.

His ex-girlfriend Shaniqua Tompkins sued Jackson for $50 million, claiming that he said that he would take care of her for life; the suit, which includes 15 claims was later dismissed by a judge, calling it "an unfortunate tale of a love relationship gone sour."

50 Cent was sentenced to two years probation on July 22, 2005 from an incident in May 2004 when 50 Cent jumped into the audience after being hit with a water bottle. He was charged with three counts of assault and battery.

Lawsuits

On July 21, 2007, Jackson filed a $1 million lawsuit against advertising company Traffix Inc. of Pearl River, New York for using his image in a promotion which he claims threatens his safety.

He became aware of the internet ad after one of his staff members saw it on a MySpace page. According to court documents, the ad features a cartoon image of the rapper and the message: "shoot the rapper and you will win $5000 or five ring tones guaranteed".

Though the ad did not use his name, the image allegedly intended to resemble him, suggesting he endorsed the ad.

The lawsuit calls it a "vile, tasteless and despicable" use of 50 Cent's image that "quite literally calls for violence against him". The lawsuit seeks for unspecified punitive damages and a permanent injunction against the use of his image without permission.

In November 2009, 50 Cent won in a lawsuit against Taco Bell over the fast food chain using his name to promote the brand without his permission.

Feuds

How to Rob

50 Cent said that he intended the single to be a joke, and not meant to disrespect anybody. Nevertheless, a number of rappers mentioned on the song responded on record.

The comments made towards the Wu-Tang Clan were responded to on the Ghostface Killah album ''Supreme Clientele'' on a track called "Ghost Deini" and even more directly on a skit called "Clyde Smith" which included one of the Wu-Tang Clan members talking about how they intended to harm the rapper, which is identifiable as Raekwon when the track is sped up. A supposed diss song, "Who the Fuck Is 50 Cent", which circulated the web in the beginning of 2001 was rumored to be by the Clan, but was proven to be recorded by Polite of American Cream Team (Raekwon's then-side project).

Jay-Z also reacted to the comments in the track called "It's Hot (Some Like It Hot)", off the album ''Vol. 3... Life and Times of S. Carter'':

"Go against Jigga yo' ass is dense I'm about a dollar, what the fuck is 50 Cents?"

Sticky Fingaz responded to the diss with the track "Jackin' for Beats."

"The real 50 from Brooklyn god bless he got outed You just a fake clown who front and rout about it."

Big Pun responds to this track on his album ''Yeeeah Baby'', in the song "My Turn."

"And to the 50 Cent Rapper, very funny – get your nut off, 'cuz in real life, we all know I'd blow your motherfucking head off...If I'm gonna write a song, it'll be about how I had to beat your mothafuckin' ass. And that'll be the name of the motherfucker: 'That's Why I Had To Beat Your Motherfucking Ass', featuring Tony Sunshine."

Kurupt responded on the diss track "Callin' Out Names."

"Now it's 50 mc's that ain't worth shit Get ya ass kicked 50 times, beat to 10 cent"

Wyclef Jean responded on the song "Low Income", from his 2000 album, ''The Ecleftic''.

"I stay so hungry that if 50 Cent came to rob me he'd be part of my charity."

The Inc.

Before signing with Interscope, Jackson engaged in a well-publicized dispute with rapper Ja Rule and his label The Inc.. Jackson claims that a friend robbed Ja Rule of his jewelry and that Ja Rule accused him of setting it up. However, Ja Rule claimed the conflict stemmed from a video shoot in Queens because Jackson did not like seeing him "getting so much love" from the neighborhood. In March 2000, while at The Hit Factory studio in New York, Jackson had an altercation with Murder Inc. associates. He was treated for three stitches after receiving a stab wound. Rapper Black Child claimed responsibility for the stabbing, saying he acted in self-defense because he thought someone reached for a gun.

An affidavit by an IRS agent suggested that Murder Inc. had ties to Kenneth "Supreme" McGriff, a New York drug lord who was suspected of being involved in the murder of Jam Master Jay and the shooting of Jackson. An excerpt of the affidavit read:

In an interview with MTV, Ja Rule acknowledged his defeat against 50 Cent and stated that his new album, The Mirror, will not be continuing any past feuds that he has engaged in. He said: There was a lot of things I wanted to say, and I didn't want there to be any bitter records on the album. Because I'm not bitter about anything that happened [in the past few years].

Fat Joe, Nas & Jadakiss

Before releasing ''The Massacre'', Jackson recorded a song "Piggy Bank", a response to Ja Rule's song "New York", which was leaked before the album's release. The song takes aim at rappers including Fat Joe, Nas, and Jadakiss. Fat Joe responded with a song, "My Fofo", accusing Jackson of taking steroids, hiding in his home, and being jealous of The Game. Jadakiss also responded with a song, "Checkmate", and said that Jackson was trying to "create a buzz for his new album". The "Piggy Bank" music video portrays animated caricatures of Jadakiss (as a Ninja turtle), Fat Joe (as King Hippo from ''Mike Tyson's Punch-Out''), Nas (as a kid chasing a "milkshake" truck in a Superman costume), and The Game (as Mr. Potato Head). He also disses all of them on the beef version of his single "Window Shopper" Kelis, Nas's then-wife, responded to the song on her single "Bossy". Nas later responded with "Don't Body Ya Self (MC Burial)." Nas later dissed 50 on the song "Street Ridaz" on Game's mixtape "Brake Lights".

Sean Combs

Jackson spoke negatively about Bad Boy Entertainment mogul Sean Combs and recorded a song, "Hip-Hop", revealing the reasons behind his negative feelings: primarily, a contract dispute over Mase. In the song, he implied that Diddy knew about The Notorious B.I.G.'s murder and threatened to expose him through former associates. The feud was resolved, with both rappers appearing on MTV's ''TRL'' and ''Sucker Free'', respectively, stating that there were no longer problems. The feud reignited in 2010 with 50 Cent dissing Diddy, saying his music "sucks".

Cam'ron

On February 1, 2007, Cam'ron and Jackson had a live argument on ''The Angie Martinez Show'' on Hot 97 radio. Jackson commented that Koch Entertainment was a "graveyard", meaning major record labels would not work with their artists. Cam'ron then ridiculed the record sales of G-Unit members Lloyd Banks and Mobb Deep by stating that Jim Jones outsold their albums despite being signed to an independent label and that his group, The Diplomats, had a distribution deal from several labels. Both rappers released "diss" songs with videos on YouTube. Jackson suggested in "Funeral Music" that Cam'ron is no longer able to lead The Diplomats and that Jim Jones should take his place. Cam'ron responded with "Curtis" and "Curtis Pt. II", in which he makes fun of Jackson's appearance, calling him "a gorilla, with rabbit teeth". Jackson responded by releasing "Hold On" with Young Buck.

Game

Although he was close with The Game, before The Game released his debut album ''The Documentary'', they soon became at odds. After its release, Jackson felt The Game was disloyal for saying he did not want to participate in G-Unit's feuds with other rappers and even wanting to work with artists they were feuding with. He also claimed that he wrote six songs on the album and was not receiving proper credit for his work, which The Game denied.

Jackson later dismissed The Game from G-Unit on Hot 97 radio. After the announcement, The Game, who was a guest earlier in the evening, attempted to enter the building with his entourage. After being denied entry, one of his associates was shot in the leg during a confrontation with a group of men leaving the building. When the situation escalated, both rappers held a press conference to announce their reconciliation. Fans had mixed feelings as to whether the rappers created a publicity stunt to boost the sales of the albums they had just released. Nevertheless, even after the situation deflated, G-Unit criticized The Game's street credibility. The group denounced The Game and announced that they will not be featured on his albums. During a Summer Jam performance, The Game launched a boycott of G-Unit called "G-Unot".

After the performance at Summer Jam, The Game responded with "300 Bars and Runnin'", an extended "diss" aimed at G-Unit as well as members of Roc-A-Fella Records on the mixtape ''You Know What It Is Vol. 3''. Jackson responded through his "Piggy Bank" music video, which features The Game as a Mr. Potato Head doll and also parodies other rivals. Since then both groups continued to attack each other. The Game released two more mixtapes, ''Ghost Unit'' and a mixtape/DVD called ''Stop Snitchin, Stop Lyin''.

Jackson posted a cover of The Game's head on the body of a male stripper for "Hate It or Love It (G-Unit Radio Part 21)" mixtape, as a response to The Game displaying pictures of G-Unit dressed as Village People. Although he was signed to Aftermath Entertainment, The Game left the label and signed with Geffen Records to terminate his contractual obligations with G-Unit (although others claim Jackson pressured Dr. Dre to kick him off). G-Unit member Spider Loc had also began to insult The Game on various songs. In addition, The Game released "240 Bars (Spider Joke)" and "100 Bars (The Funeral)" both attacking G-Unit, Spider Loc and others. Jackson's response was "Not Rich, Still Lyin'" where he mocks The Game. Lloyd Banks replied to the Game on a Rap City freestyle booth session. The Game quickly released a "diss" record called "SoundScan" where The Game pokes fun at Lloyd Banks' album ''Rotten Apple'' falling thirteen spots on the ''Billboard'' 200 chart and disappointing second week sales. Lloyd Banks replied on his mixtape ''Mo' Money In The Bank Pt. 5: Gang Green Season Continues'' with a song called "Showtime (The Game's Over)". Lloyd Banks states that Jackson wrote half of The Game's first album ''The Documentary'' and pokes fun at The Game's suicidal thoughts.

In October 2006, The Game extended a peace treaty to Jackson, which was not immediately replied to. However, a couple days later, on Power 106, he stated that the treaty was only offered for one day. On The Game's album, ''Doctor's Advocate'', he claims that the feud is over on a few of the songs.

In July 2009, The Game stated the beef was squashed with help from Michael Jackson and Diddy, and he apologized for his actions during the beef. Tony Yayo said that neither Jackson (50 Cent) or G-Unit would accept his apology. Since then, The Game continued his old "G-Unot" ways at live concerts. Jackson released "So Disrespectful" a diss song on ''Before I Self Destruct'' targeting Jay-Z, The Game and Young Buck. Game later responded with the song "Shake", poking fun of the music video for 50's single "Candy Shop", quote, "Me and 50 aint agreeing on shit so I had to (Shake) Aint no telling what he putting in that protein (Shake) Seen the candy shop video look at this nigga (Shake) And thats the same shit that made the nigga Young Buck (Shake)". He also takes shots at Lloyd Banks and Tony Yayo, in which he says, "I'm surprised that Lloyd Banks and Yayo didn't (Shake) Wasn't selling no records Jimmy Iovine said (Shake)". Game also dissed G-Unit several times on the song "400 Bars".

In September 2011, 50 Cent dissed Game on the song "Love, Hate, Love", in which Game responded to on his twitter, saying he was going to diss him back after his tour was finished, quote:

Rick Ross

In January 2009, Rick Ross started a feud with 50 Cent because he supposedly looked at him the wrong way at the BET Awards. However, Jackson told news sources that he did not even remember seeing Rick Ross there. In late January, a track entitled "Mafia Music" by Rick Ross, leaked onto the Internet. There were several lines that seem to diss Jackson. Days later, Jackson released "Officer Ricky (Go Head, Try Me)" in response to Rick Ross's disparaging remarks on his "Mafia Music" song. The next day Rick Ross appeared on Shade 45, and told Jackson to come up with something better in 24 hours.

Before going to Venezuela, Jackson uploaded a video entitled "Warning Shot", where he warns Rick Ross: ''"I'ma fuck your life up for fun"''. In addition, Jackson released the first of a series of "Officer Ricky" cartoons. Early February, Jackson once again made a video which he uploaded to YouTube where he interviews "Tia", the mother of one of Rick Ross's children. She verifies his being a correctional officer and claims his whole persona is fake and fraudulent. On Thursday, February 5, 2009, The Game, who Jackson has a long-standing "beef" with, called up Seattle's KUBE 93 Radio Station. When asked about the beef between Jackson and Rick Ross, The Game sided with Jackson and said that things are not looking good for Rick Ross. However, he offered to help Rick Ross get out of this situation, stating ''"Rick Ross, holla at your boy, man,"'' and ''"50 eating you'', boy."

On his album ''Deeper Than Rap'', Ross references Jackson in the song "In Cold Blood". A video for the song was released that portrayed Jackson's mock funeral. Upon release, Ross stated that he has ended Jackson's career.

In an interview, Jackson said: "Rick Ross is Albert From CB4. You ever seen the movie? He's Albert," he added. "It never gets worse than this. You get a guy that was a correctional officer come out and base his entire career on writing material from a drug dealer's perspective such as "Freeway" Ricky Ross."

Lil Wayne

After hearing word that Lil Wayne had prepared a song for him after 50 made some unkind remarks, 50 lashed out at Wayne first on August 17, 2007 with the song "Part Time Lover". Wayne never really responded to the song, although a 50 Cent diss track called "Louisianimal" did leak much later on November 17, 2008. Jackson responded to Lil Wayne in January 2009 in a song entitled "Play This On The Radio". As of August 14, 2009, the controversy between Jackson and Lil Wayne seems to have ended after Jackson appeared and performed at Lil Wayne's America's Most Wanted Musical Festival stop in Anaheim, California.

Young Buck

''Main article: 50 Cent vs. Young Buck''

After numerous rumors of a "beef" within G-Unit, Jackson officially dismissed Young Buck from the group, in 2008. He later assured that he was still signed with the label. Numerous slander songs then arose on the internet from both camps, with Young Buck appearing in a music video of former rival The Game. Jackson then leaked a taped phone conversation between himself and Young Buck, which showed one of the true reasons for the falling out; Jackson was owed money by the Southern rapper. Young Buck later stated the conversation took place over a year before the leak. The two camps have since released a multitude of songs against each other, with the feud settling down by 2009, with Young Buck stating he's been working on his latest album, which is still to be released under the G-Unit label.

In April 2012, after being ousted from the crew back in 2008, Young Buck has entered talks to work with the label. Days after indicating that he would be open to re-teaming with his old crew at G-Unit Records, Young Buck now confirms that he has begun negotiations with the label about making his return. Buck provided the update in a recent interview stating "I'ma be honest with you," he said, "Finally we're at a point where we're having some kind of negotiations with what they're going to be able to do for us at G-Unit." The Nashville, Tennessee native said he was ready to make his return to music, whether as a part of G-Unit or not. "Y’all are gonna be hearing from me," he said. "I don't want to put a timing on it, but the wait is absolutely over, and we're just trying to figure out what's the best situation for us, where I'm gonna go." Buck stated in an interview after a concert in California April 4, 2012. Young Buck's last album was the 2010 independent release ''The Rehab''. It’s been a rough go for Buck since he was expelled from 50’s crew in 2008, he has run into financial troubles and he recently escaped an attempted drive-by shooting in his hometown. Although it doesn’t look like the rapper has straightened out his relationship with 50 Cent, but he says the label has finally agreed to negotiate. The negotiations may not lead to a new deal between Young Buck and G-Unit, but the rapper remains optimistic and explained that it’s only a matter of time before he ends up finding a place to take his talent.

Discography

''Get Rich or Die Tryin''' (2003)

''The Massacre'' (2005)

''Curtis'' (2007)

''Before I Self Destruct'' (2009)

''Fifth studio album'' (2012)

Awards and nominations

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2003	''50 Cent: The New Breed''	Himself	Documentary DVD
2005		Marcus	Film debut
2006		Jamal Aiken	Supporting Role
	''Righteous Kill''	Spider	Supporting Role
	Clarence	Supporting Role
''50 Cent: The Money and the Power''	Himself	TV series (one episode: "Choose Your Crew Wisely")
	''Streets of Blood''	Stan Johnson
	Himself	TV series (Season 6, Episode 3: "One Car, Two Car, Red Car, Blue Car")
	Thigo
''Caught in the Crossfire''	Tino	Executive producer
		Jimmy
	Rich
	Lionel	Supporting Role
	Himself
		Black	Post-production
''Blood Out''	Hardwick
	Sonny
	''All Things Fall Apart''	Deon
	Malo
	–	Producer
	Shamus Cocobolo
		Pre-production
2013

Voice work

Year	Title	Role	Notes
	''The Simpsons''	Himself	TV series (one episode: "Pranksta Rap")
''50 Cent: Bulletproof''	Himself	Video game, voice only
	''50 Cent: Blood on the Sand''	Himself	Video game, voice only
''Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2''		Video game, voice only

References

External links

50 Cent at AOL Sessions

* Category:1975 births Category:Living people Category:Actors from New York City Category:African-American businesspeople Category:African American film actors Category:African-American film producers Category:African American rappers Category:African American record producers Category:Aftermath Entertainment artists Category:American investors Category:American music industry executives Category:American shooting survivors Category:American stock traders Category:American video game actors Category:Brit Award winners Category:Echo winners Category:Businesspeople from New York City Category:Grammy Award winners Category:G-Unit members Category:Hip hop singers Category:People convicted of drug offenses Category:People from Queens Category:Pseudonymous rappers Category:Rappers from New York City Category:Shady Records artists Category:Survivors of stabbing Category:Sony/ATV Music Publishing artists Category:World Music Awards winners

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name	Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E.
background	group_or_band
years active	1988 – Present
origin	Carson, California
genre	Hip hop
label	Island RecordsSamoan Mafia Records
associated acts	Ice Cube, Eminem, Ice T, The Game, Mack 10
current members	GawttiThe GodfatherKobra Monsta OGanxsta Ridd }}

Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E. are a hip hop group from Carson, California, composed of the Devoux brothers Paul, Ted, Donald, Roscoe, Danny, and David. Their family is from Samoa. They first began playing music in their father's Baptist church. Before anyone else arrived, they would play P-Funk and experiment with other forms of hip-hop. Particularly popular in their South Bay neighborhood, they began to dance to funk music. The brothers then created the dance crew the Blue City Strutters and publicly performed. All members are members or former members of West Side Piru and Samoan Warrior Bounty Hunters. Despite their religious upbringing, the brothers eventually fell into the gang scene popular in their home of Compton, Los Angeles. After their youngest brother was killed in 1987, they decided to turn their lives around and dedicate their lives to music because "that's what he would have wanted." To get away from the gang culture, the brothers decided to leave L.A. and go to Japan. While there, they were inspired to begin performing music again, with Paul "Gangxta R.I.D." rapping in front of eager Japanese audiences. They toured Japan in the mid 1980s and became very popular. Upon their return to California in 1988, the group focused again on making music and re-christened themselves as the Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E. Their pioneering debut LP, ''New Funky Nation'', was different from most rap records at the time because the Boo-Yaa TRIBE played live instruments on it. Later on, they ventured into the realms of both gangsta rap and rapcore music. They also appeared on the ''Judgment Night'' soundtrack performing "Another Body Murdered" with Faith No More, on Kid Frost's ''East Side Story'' LP, on The Transplants' ''Haunted Cities'' LP and on the rock group P.O.D.'s ''Testify'', with the emotional rap track "On the Grind." The "Boo-Yaa" in their name signifies the sound of a shotgun being discharged, while the "T.R.I.B.E." stands for "Too Rough International Boo-Yaa Empire." According to hip-hop documentarians, Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E. is "synonymous with hip hop in Los Angeles."

Influence

The Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E. has also proven to be very influential for other Samoan hip-hop artists. Kosmo, an important Samoan hip-hop artist in New Zealand, cites the Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E. as "an original inspiration for his lifelong interest in street dance and...hip hop music." Additionally, as Samoans are often seen as a diasporic group spread out among various locations, the Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E. have been successfully able to recocilen their roles as Samoans and Americans while still traveling and achieving success in Japan and other countries. The group's 1997 album titled "Angry Samoans" hints at the connection to their Samoan heritage even as they are often identified with the California hip-hop scene.

The four brothers began their musical careers on a small scale performing instrumentals at their father (a Baptist Minister's) Church. While on their own, they would practice funk hits from the American band Parliament-Funkadelic. The Brothers got their start through professional dance then later found their way into making the music to which they enjoyed dancing. In 2000 David Devoux left and was replaced by Vincent Devoux aka Gawtti.

Discography

1990	*Chart Positions: #117 US, #33 R&B;/Hip-Hop	*Last RIAA certification:	*Singles: "Psyko Funk"
align="left"	*Released: 1994	*Chart Positions:	*Last RIAA certification:	*Singles: "Doomsday", "Kill 'Em All", "Get Gatted On"
	*Released: November 7, 1995	*Chart Positions:	*Last RIAA certification:	*Singles:
	*Released: June 4, 1996	*Chart Positions:N/A	*Last RIAA certification:	*Singles: "Mentally Disturbed"
align="left"	*Released: 1998	*Chart Positions:	*Last RIAA certification:	*Singles: "Skared for Lyfe", "Buried Alive", "Boogie Man"
	*Released: October 31, 2000	*Chart Positions: N/A	*Last RIAA certification:	*Singles: "Mafia Lifestyle", "All Mighty Boo-Yaa"
	*Released: October 7, 2003	*Chart Positions: #85 Top R&B;/Hip-Hop	*Last RIAA certification:	*Singles: "Bang On", "911", "State of Emergency"
align="left"	*Released: November 13, 2006	*Chart Positions:	*Last RIAA certification:	*Singles: "G's from the Otha Side", "If I Die, Let Me Roll"

References

http://www.frank151.com/book/chapter_35_samoa?page=1

External links

http://www.thesituation.co.uk/features/booyaa_tribe/booyaa_tribe.html

http://www.streetgangs.com/magazine/123106gawtti.html Interview of Gawtti on Gangster Rap by Alex Alonso of Streetgangs.com

Category:People from Carson, California Category:American hip hop groups Category:Bloods Category:American people of Samoan descent

de:Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E. fr:Boo-Yaa Tribe it:Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E. ja:ブーヤー・トライブ