Lloyd Banks On G-Unit’s 2002 Mixtape Run: ‘That Was My Favorite Year’

Lloyd Banks has said his favorite year as an MC was in 2002 during 50 Cent and G-Unit‘s iconic mixtape run.

During an appearance on the Rap Radar podcast, Banks realized that 2022 marked 20 years since the legendary run. The tapes released during this period included 50 Cent Is the Future, No Mercy No Fear and God’s Plan, and Banks said he had more fun during that triage of projects than he did when his debut solo album came out.

“That was I can honestly say probably my favorite year,” Banks said. “Even more than my solo album. ‘Cause going into that time, like I said [it started] from sitting in the house literally 8 o’clock at night to six in the morning just talking. Just talking about how it’s going to be. What they expect, you know what I mean? Like really preparing for this shit.”

He continued: “We would like to say we were like gearing up for the long run, but that’d be a lie. N-ggas was talking about how to be like a tornado. Like not, ‘Hey we from over here,’ like a tornado. Everything stopped … That type of energy, that urgency.”

20 years ago! G-Unit mixtape reign began. #RapRadarPodcast ⁦@Lloydbanks⁩ ?? https://t.co/OTw9pQf6Qb pic.twitter.com/2n7gLyVVw7

— Elliott Wilson (@ElliottWilson) September 8, 2022

While G-Unit’s brief mixtape run was heralded as one of the group’s finest hours, Lloyd Banks had an equally as successful solo career when he kicked things off in 2004 with The Hunger For More. Banks’ debut project hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200, moving 433,000 units in its first week.

According to Banks, the success of Hunger For More led to an even greater album advance for his sophomore record. “My advance for my second album was like a million dollars,” Banks told Elliott Wilson and Brian ‘B.Dot’ Miller. “Those days are over,” the latter interjected.

“Yeah, I never told nobody that, but yeah” Banks continued. “But then imagine what the third one was supposed to be.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Banks explained the origin of his “Lazy Lloyd” nickname and tattoo, which he said was a tribute of sorts to Bone Thugs-n-Harmony‘s Layzie Bone.

“To be honest with you, it came from Layzie Bone,” Banks said. “I never told anybody that, except for him.”

B.Dot followed up by asking Banks if he ever wanted to be in the group, to which he replied: “Everybody did. Don’t sit here and act like… c’mon, man.”

Layzie Bone then shouted out Banks on his Instagram Stories, sharing a still from the interview and writing: “What a honor.”

Lloyd Banks dropped off his latest effort The Course of the Inevitable 2 in July, and said in an interview with HipHopDX that he is so inspired he feels like he could feed his fans for the next five years.

“Now, I feel like I’m fully capable of dropping an album for the next five years,” Banks said. “At least once a year, if not twice.”