You couldn't move for 50 Cent come the start of 2004. The rap megastar born Curtis Jackson had been dominating mainstream media for a year straight: his debut album, Get Rich Or Die Tryin', was the biggest-selling LP of 2003 and the fastest-selling debut album by any hip hop artist in history, shifting a cool 872,000 copies in its first week, and going onto sell over 12 million more.
Fiddy's instantaneous, club-ready bangers (In Da Club is in your head right now, admit it), superstar associates (discovered by Eminem, produced by Dr. Dre) and bad boy image (dealt narcotics at school, shot nine times in front of his grandma's house in Queens - instant anti-hero folklore) made him the poster boy for an imminent new wave of gangsta rap and one of the single biggest young names in music. By the time of the 2004 Grammys, it seemed like a shoe-in that he'd be walking home with the Best New Artist gong.
Except, that's not how it panned out. On the other side of the music aisle, a rock band from Little Rock, Arkansas named Evanescence were making waves of their own. Fronted by a magnetic, hyper-talented frontwoman in Amy Lee and armed with the last great anthem of the nu metal era in Bring Me To Life, their debut album Fallen was doing splendid business itself - 141,000 copies in its first week may have been a way off the heady sales initially amassed by ol' Curtis, but the cult around the band was growing, and fast.
Still, as the 46th annual Grammy awards rolled around on February 8, 2004 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, 50 Cent was very much seen as the undisputed favourite for that Best New Artist award, and was also in the mix for Best Rap Album and Best Male Rap Solo Performance, albeit pitched against some true titans in those categories including Eminem, Missy Elliot, Outkast and Jay-Z.
Evanescence, meanwhile, found themselves with three nominations of their own - Best New Artist alongside 50, Fountains Of Wayne, Heather Hadley and Sean Paul - as well as Album Of The Year for Fallen and Best Hard Rock Performance for Bring Me To Life. Following a turbulent period for the band - co-founding member Ben Moody had left under acrimonious circumstances a few months prior - Amy was happy to see their work get recognition.
"So many nominations is something that I don't think any of us were expecting at all," she modestly told CNN on the red carpet that night. "We're very honoured."
“I was pretty sure that we weren’t going to win, at least not Best New Artist," Amy confirmed years later to Metal Hammer. "I thought for sure that would be 50 Cent. We were 100% the dark horse. I felt like, 'People don’t know who I am'...I’m a 21-, 22-year-old kid, trying to dress up like a grown-up and I had my shoes off when they called our name. I don’t normally wear heels. They’re very uncomfortable!”
Both artists had picked up a number of awards from other organisations heading into the Grammys, but 50 Cent's cabinet was already starting to look like something out of Smaug's cave - Billboard alone had handed him no fewer than sixteen gongs the previous year.
The stage was set for hip hop's new prince to be officially crowned...and then, one of the most surprising swerves in Grammys history went down.
As the year's previous winner Norah Jones, accompanied by Lord Of The Rings star Sean Astin, read out Evanescence's name as the winners of the Best New Artist award, the surprise on the band's face was clearly legit. The surprise on 50 Cent's face was clearly legit too, as he rushed the stage seconds after Amy had picked up the award, sarcastically strolling past everyone before making a confused face at the camera.
“You know when you’re just in shock?" Amy told The Daily Beast in 2023. "He didn’t do anything, he didn’t grab the mic, it wasn’t that bad. He just sort of made an appearance. It was like Zoolander when he thought he won.”
Clearly bemused by the whole thing but refusing to be rattled, Amy took it all in pretty good humour when giving her winner's speech.
"Oh, what did I do? This is my first time!" she remarked with a smile, watching 50 Cent disappear. "Thanks 50! In addition to 50 Cent, I’d like to thank my record label Wind-Up for finding us, especially [label boss] Diana Meltzer for believing in me."
She also made a point of recognising how rare it was (and sadly still is, let's be real) to see a woman pick up a rock award. "Thank you to the fans," she continued, "because I know that there’s no way that modern rock would have put a chick and a piano on modern rock radio if it wasn’t for the fans calling in over and over, so thank you guys."
Despite Evanescence proving their worth twice over by also bagging the award for Best Hard Rock Performance, the aftermath of their victory was dominated by discourse over how 50 Cent had been 'screwed' out of what seemed like a guaranteed win - perhaps made all the sorer by the fact the rapper didn't walk out with any awards that night.
“I feel like I got jerked at the Grammys because I’m aggressive,” he told MuchMusic soon after, blaming the decision on Grammy "politics". “I don’t understand how they get best new artist."
The loss made serious ripples in the hip hop community: appearing on Oprah the following year, Kanye West voiced his surprise that 50 didn't pick up the win.
"I fight for what I think is the best at the time," he insisted. "50 Cent didn’t win any Grammys! I went on TV the next day and I said, ‘You all robbed 50 Cent of his Grammys'. He was the most important thing. He was the soundtrack to our life in 2003."
It was a sentiment 50's collaborator and mentor, Eminem, echoed years later.
"50 Cent did not win Best New Artist at the Grammys," he said in an interview with Sway Colloway in 2018. "There was nothing bigger. Nothing since maybe Snoop came out the gate like that. My first album didn’t do it. I never saw someone’s first album and the wave happen like he had - and then he doesn’t get it?!"
While the hip hop community's vitriol didn't seem to be directed at Evanescence so much as at the Grammys themselves, it's clearly something that has stuck with 50 Cent ever since - "It’s the largest debut album in hip hop to date, and I was overlooked!” he fumed years later.
Speaking at the ceremony for the reveal of his star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame in 2020, flanked by Eminem and Dr Dre, poor Curtis couldn't resist another dig.
“I didn’t receive a lot of awards according to the success of the music," he said with a smirk. "You got the largest debut hip hop album - and you don’t got no Best New Artist trophy. The Best New Artist, they gave that shit to Evanescence!"
Clearly having not paid attention to rock music whatsoever over the previous 20 years, 50 added: "Can you find Evanescence? I ain’t seen Evanescence since that night!"
“50 Cent hates my guts,” Amy Lee chuckled in an interview with Daily Beast in 2023. “It’s just one of those things. I mean, truthfully, we thought he was going to win too. It was such a wild night. People are like, ‘What was it like to win a Grammy?’ and I’m like, ‘Stressful!’ I mean, it’s wonderful now, to have them, but it was surreal…I just remember thinking, ‘I don’t even think anybody in this room knows who we are.’”
Well, the world undoubtedly knows who both Evanescence and 50 Cent are today. It seems their early careers are forever destined to be awkwardly, chaotically intertwined.
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