"You're too late if you're looking for 50," I was told in a Manhattan Virgin Megastore last week. "We're all sold out."

The sales assistant was talking about 50 Cent, the 25-year-old crack-dealer-turned-rapper who makes NWA look about as menacing as NSync. His major-label debut, Get Rich Or Die Tryin', is a nasty, hardcore rap album that opens with the sound of a gun being loaded and glorifies drive-by shootings.

It's also one of the best-selling debut albums of all time, entering the American charts at No 1 earlier this month and selling a record 872,082 copies in its first week of release.

Like Snoop Doggy Dogg, who previously held the record, 50 capitalises on his shady past by rapping about it. He's been shot at, stabbed, sold crack on the streets, and been in and out of jail.

The violence doesn't stop there; 50's mentor, the late Jam Master Jay of Run DMC, was murdered last October (many think his death was the tragic result of a hit on 50 gone awry). And then late last year, the offices of 50's management company Violator were sprayed with bullets. On New Year's Eve, 50 was arrested yet again, this time for illegal firearms possession.

50 was hailed as the next big thing last year when Eminem named him as his favourite rapper and used his track Wanksta on the 8 Mile soundtrack. Eminem and Dr Dre were impressed enough to sign 50 in a joint deal. But delve beyond the hype and you'll find that - other than having been shot at more than most rappers - 50 does not have an awful lot to say.

On Get Rich, he extols the virtues of crime and disses Ja Rule and Ashanti but he's not saying anything new. From one-time pimp Ice T to former crack dealer Notorious BIG, we've heard authentic gangster rap before - and from rappers far more skilled than 50.

50's selling point is not his rhyming ability but his attitude. In a sea of agreeable, radio-friendly pop-rap (Nelly, Ja Rule, LL Cool J), 50 keeps it so gangster that he has become almost a caricature.

He drives around his native New York sporting a bulletproof vest, in a bulletproof, bombproof Jeep Cherokee with four-inch thick windows, boasting about the bullet holes in his musclebound, tattooed body. 50 (real name Curtis Jackson) is so relentlessly self-destructive that people are desperate to see how far he'll go.

He started selling crack at 12 after the murder of his drug-dealing mother when he was eight. With his first hit single, How To Rob, he went out of his way to antagonise his rap peers, fantasising about stealing from the likes of Mariah Carey and Jay-Z.

Months later, 50 was stabbed in his studio and then shot nine times while sitting in his car, the bullets ripping through his face, legs and hands. In true Action Man style, he drove himself to the hospital.

For now, it's a role he seems to enjoy. "It's not funny when you're actually getting shot," he told Time magazine. "But afterwards, yeah, it's funny. And it's cool if people laugh. I love being the bad guy."