“The fans never stopped asking for it,” says Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson. The rapper, producer, and serial entrepreneur isn’t talking about a new album or yet another spinoff of his sprawling Power franchise. Instead, he’s finally indulging his supporters by re-releasing one of the most beloved sneakers of the early-aughts: the Reebok G-Unit G6.
The G6 launched in 2003, the very same year 50 broke through with his seminal album Get Rich or Die Tryin’. In the wake of that record’s multiplatinum success, everything that Jackson and his group G-Unit (also comprising, at the time, Tony Yayo, Lloyd Banks, and Young Buck) touched was gold. In addition to a non-stop slew of solid-gold hits, G-Unit had their own record label with Interscope, their own clothing brand with Ecko, and yes, their own sneaker line with Reebok. While G-Unit and Reebok would go on to drop other popular silhouettes like the G XT cross-trainer and G-Unit Boot, none could ever compare to the runaway success of the original G6 tennis shoe, with its luxe, pared-down, exceedingly versatile look.
Courtesy of Reebok
“Creating it the first time was special,” 50 recalls of the shoe. “I worked with Todd [Krinsky, now Reebok’s CEO] and the team on everything and they really let me make it mine. It wasn’t just a sneaker—it became part of the culture.”
That’s no exaggeration—it’s hard to overstate the grip G-Unit had on hip-hop and youth culture at large in the early aughts. Everything associated with the group’s style became aspirational—the spinner chains, the white tank tops, and especially the ultra-clean G-Unit kicks. They were just as captivating to me and my middle-school classmates as they were to our older brothers and college-aged camp counselors. For a lot of us, Reebok G-Units were an introduction to sneakers as an object of cultural currency, not just something bought out of necessity, like notebooks and pencils, the week before a school year started.
The partnership eventually fizzled out around 2006. But over the ensuing two decades, as sneaker culture continued to explode and evolve, the shoes remained an object of fascination. Given just how tied to a specific era they were, though, there was no telling if the G6s would ever see the light of day again. But nostalgia is a hell of a drug, and for years fans and media members alike have waxed poetic about the G-Unit sub-brand and hoped to see its return someday.