50 CENT ON THE DIME AT HOUSE OF BLUES.

Byline: Theo Douglas Staff Writer

Getting shot nine times can blunt anyone's ambitions.

But in the fiery opening show of a two-night stint at the House of Blues in West Hollywood, bullet-scarred East Coast rapper 50 Cent showed he has what it takes to move out of mentor Eminem's shadow and beyond the hype surrounding him as hip-hop's latest gangster ascendant.

This being said, 50's first HOB gig was all about the drama, on stage and off. Riding the beats of rap's current hottest and best-selling star, several hundred people without tickets caused a near-panic Sunday when they tried pushing their way down the hill and up to the door of the nightspot.

It took a swarm of Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies on the ground and in helicopters to restore order, and a sense of uneasiness lingered through the evening, along with several TV news helicopters hovering over Sunset Strip.

Inside, however, all was business. Queens native 50 Cent, born Curtis Jackson, hit the stage along with his G-Unit posse at 9 p.m. - an hour earlier than promised.

Serving up truncated renditions of virtually his entire Shady/Aftermath debut, ``Get Rich or Die Tryin','' 50 Cent had the mellow crowd dancing from the opening strains of ``U Not Like Me,'' a bonus track on the CD.

``If you get shot runnin' the cops, u not like me/u ain't got no work on the block, u not like me,'' he rhymed as more than a dozen members of the G-Unit backed him up.

The quick 40-minute set had 50 pacing the stage like a dog in a cage, stripping from a New York Mets jersey to the black, bulletproof vests he and his posse wore like uniforms to ending up shirtless just three songs into the set.

Rather than working in his favor, though, the fast-paced show and the shortened-up raps only compromised the deeply personalized take on the thug life that sets his CD apart from such competitors as Ja Rule.

Pitting one side of the room against the other in between songs, pretending to ``take out'' a Ja Rule fan with an automatic's blast over the sound system, 50 Cent came off like just another contender - until he started rapping.

He was at his best teasing the crowd with a snippet of a Missy Elliott hit or a verse of his own smash, ``In Da Club,'' with its annoyingly unforgettable ``Go Sean/it's your birthday/we gonna party like it's your birthday'' chorus.

Partying was what the crowd definitely wanted. With a sell-out audience that sheriff's deputies suggested had been oversold, the room was out to have a good time. As 50 got hot and stripped down, women throughout the club yelled out, ``Take it off!''

Their adulation makes it apparent that 50 Cent has come into his own, even if he's had to adopt some of rap's standard conventions to play live.

``I done came up and I ain't changed,'' 50 raps on ``In Da Club,'' but clearly, he already has.

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Photo:

50 Cent is taking his best-selling rap act on the road

Theo Wargo/WireImage.com