It’s his chance to go for it all

Lloyd Banks had seen some bad things in his New York neighborhood of Jamaica, Queens. Shootings, arrests, drugs, death, despair. And he knew that things could always get worse, without warning or reason.

He remembers the night of Sept. 10, 2001, as ending particularly badly. He was already rapping by then, had been for years, inspired and encouraged by the success of his childhood friend 50 Cent, soon to be a global, multi-platinum hip-hop star. And as Banks stood outside a nightclub that evening, gunfire erupted nearby.

“I got hit,” says Banks, now 22. “Basically, I had to run to the hospital myself and got hit by a car in the process. But when blood is rushing that fast, certain things don’t hurt.”

He awoke in the hospital just in time to see the Twin Towers collapse on television. “I thought I was watching ‘Independence Day’ or something. Man, get me out of here!”

The scars from a gunshot wound often seem like a marketable badge of honor to some artists, but the experience is reflected in the content of Banks’ music. And he says he maintains ties to that old neighborhood, as do his friends 50 Cent and the rapper Yayo. His debut as a solo artist, “The Hunger for More,” is a document of that and his new obsession with establishing a lasting career in hip-hop.

In the process, Banks has not only worked with 50 Cent but created music with such major figures as Eminem, Timbaland and Snoop Dogg, with whom he feels a laid-back kinship. And just how far Banks’ fortunes have come can already be heard in his voice as he speaks from the lobby of his Berlin hotel, now a platinum artist with “Hunger.”

Banks had first traveled to Europe and other parts of the globe as part of the G-Unit crew and the international 50 Cent juggernaut. His mix tapes had fueled buzz among hard-core rap fans in Germany and Japan. And now, with the new album, Banks is approaching the kind of quick global success that 50 Cent enjoyed after the 2003 release of “Get Rich or Die Tryin’.”

“It’s a good feeling to know that a million people have already purchased my album in the first four weeks,” Banks says. “It’s incredible. I know where I came from, so just being here is enough for me.”

Banks is set to appear at the Forum in Inglewood on Saturday for the 100.3 The Beat’s Summer Jam show, with his club hit “On Fire” likely to get prominent attention.

It was 50 Cent who first insisted that Banks actively seek a solo career beyond G-Unit. When 50 Cent signed his own first record deal in the late ‘90s, to Banks it was as if he had won the championship. And 50 Cent wasn’t at all threatened by the potential of Banks, who had been youngest of a small crowd of friendswho grew up just around the corner from one another.

“That says he’s a real dude,” Banks says. “People that surround me, we’ve been through a lot together. I take things like honor and loyalty seriously. It’s more important to me than any materialistic thing or any fame I could have.

“Me and 50’s relationship is sort of like what me and my brothers’ is. I tell my little brothers what they need to know ... 50 tells me things in the event of him not being here, [things] nobody else is going to tell me.”

Banks says he had grown up fast in the neighborhood. As the son of a teenage mother, he was already baby-sitting his 2-year-old brother when he was 9, while hearing his mother’s rap records at home -- Big Daddy Kane, Slick Rick, LL Cool J, among others.

“It just prepared me,” Banks says. “I felt like God wouldn’t put anything in my path that I wasn’t prepared for. So I never looked at it like I was being cheated out of my childhood or anything.”

That atmosphere is part of the common ground shared by the other members of G-Unit, a kind of brotherhood that has allowed each of the members to learn from the experiences and mistakes of others.

“We lived in the same environment, so the subject matter was absolutely the same. If I was rapping about somebody in the neighborhood that got shot, then Yayo was rapping about the same situation because he’s seen it the same time I did,” Banks says.

Another profound experience, he says, has been the occasional opportunity to work with Snoop Dogg on a couple of tracks, including the marijuana anthem “I Get High,” which sounds as smooth as classic Snoop Dogg. It was recorded in the rap vet’s home studio.

“Snoop is probably my all-time biggest influence because of the way he sold records. He was himself on camera and off the camera. He never really jumped out of character,” says Banks, who, like Snoop, is about to release his first porn video as producer and host.

“I’m a calm dude. I don’t get too hyper. He’s proving that you can sell records being who you are.”

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Summer Jam 2k4

What: Day of hip-hop and R&B; performances presented by 100.3 the Beat, featuring G-Unit, Lil’ Flip, Monica, Chingy, Houston, Mase and others.

Where: The Forum, 3900 W. Manchester Blvd., Inglewood

When: 1 p.m. Saturday

Price: $35-$100.

Info: (310) 330-7300 or www.thebeatla.com