50 Cent 1976–

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50 Cent 1976–

Musician

Rapper 50 Cent, who emerged from one of the bleaker neighborhoods in New York City’s outer boroughs, found himself an overnight millionaire with the 2003 release of his debut record, Get Rich or Die Tryin’, on Eminem’s Shady/Aftermath label. It sold six million copies, finished the year as the top-seller of 2003, and set the record for top-selling debut in American chart history.

50 Cent’s success seems doubly remarkable given his origins in Queens, New York. Unlike some rap artists, who grew up in middle-class households but adopted a more streetwise persona to gain credibility in the urban music marketing game, his background was indeed rough. He was born in 1976 and grew up in Queens’s South Jamaica neighborhood as Curtis James Jackson III. His mother, Sabrina, was just 15 when he was born, and lived out the rest of her 23-year life as one of the most feared drug dealers in Queens. He never knew his father, and was raised by his grandparents following his mother’s mysterjious, likely drug-related death in which an assailant drugged her and then turned on the gas in her home.

Riddled with Nine Bullets

50 Cent found it hard to resist the lure of drug money himself, and began selling drugs when he was 12 years old. He was periodically arrested, dropped out of high school, and in 1994 served time in prison. He had been running several profitable crack houses by the time his son was born in 1997 and he decided to quit the business. “I was going to jail every other summer,” he told Entertainment Weekly’s Evan Serpick. After changing his street name from Boo-Boo to 50 Cent, which he explained was “a metaphor for change,” as he told Ebony writer Zondra Hughes, he tried to earn money as a boxer, but found a more promising avenue in music. He had long idolized rappers like KRS-One, and tried writing his own rhymes. Some made their way onto underground mix tapes, in which he rapped over others’ songs, and one of the tapes caught the ear of legendary Run DMC member Jam Master Jay. Around 1997, Jay signed 50 Cent and began working with him. “He was really patient with me,” the rapper told Time journalist Josh Tyrangiel about his mentor. “I would come in with rhymes, almost free verse, and he

At a Glance…

Born Curtis James Jackson III on July 6, 1976, in New York, NY; son of Sabrina Jackson; children: Marquise.

Career: Columbia Records, recording artist, 1999-2000; Shady Records, recording artist, 2002-.

Addresses: Office —c/o Shady Records, 151 Lafayette St. #6, New York, NY 10013-3124.

explained that they had to fit 16 bars of music. Once he said it, I got it.”

Jay produced a demo of rap songs by 50 Cent that got him signed to Columbia Records in 1999. The record label paid a $65,000 advance, but just $5,000 was left after the majority went to Jay and the rest to lawyers who brokered the deal. 50 Cent recorded 36 songs, but Columbia seemed leery about the release of the full LP, The Power of a Dollar. In response, the rapper issued a bootleg single, “How to Rob,” that was a comic take-down of a roster of famous names, from Jay-Z to Whitney Houston’s troubled spouse Bobby Brown. It generated a certain amount of street buzz, and also a fair amount of ill will toward 50 Cent. He had an altercation with a member of the Wu-Tang Clan, but worse was to come: in May of 2000, just days before the record was set to hit stores, he became the victim of a shooting that put nine bullets into his body. He had been sitting in a car near his grandmother’s home when his assailant shot him, but miraculously drove himself to the hospital, tossing his own weapon down a sewer along the way. Doctors saved his life, but one bullet fragment remained lodged in his tongue.

50 Cent asserted on several occasions that the shooting was the result of some lingering ill will over his drug-dealing days, not any payback over the bootleg single. But Columbia dropped him, and his career seemed over before it had even begun. He returned to making his own bootlegs, and gained another dose of notoriety for “Wanksta,” in which he took fellow New York City rapper Ja Rule to task. A feud between the two arose when Ja Rule was robbed of several thousand dollars’ worth of jewelry, and the suspect was later seen in the company of 50 Cent. There were two altercations, one in which 50 Cent was stabbed in a Manhattan recording studio. The wound required just a few stitches, and only heightened the tensions between the two. 50 Cent’s primary contention with Rule was his crossover to R&B and duets with J. Lo and Ashanti. “That kid is a fraud,” 50 Cent claimed in the Entertainment Weekly interview. “Ja Rule grew up a Jehovah’s Witness. While we were selling crack, he was knocking on people’s doors every Saturday.”

“Wanksta” found its way to rap superstar Eminem, who put it on the soundtrack to his hit biopic 8 Mile and signed 50 Cent to his label, Shady, for $1 million in June of 2002. 50 Cent said he was grateful for the chance that the white Detroit rapper took on him when other companies were interested in his musical talent, yet fearful of 50 Cent’s violent reputation. “Eminem was all about the music,” he told Entertainment Weekly’s Serpick. “He signed me knowing there was a possibility he was purchasing a problem.” Some cynics, however, asserted that by bringing a bullet-scarred former crack seller into his stable, Eminem gained a priceless measure of credibility that could yield an entirely new audience of hard-core rap enthusiasts.

Debut Set New Chart Record

It did. Eminem and Dr. Dre produced 50 Cent’s debut, Get Rich or Die Tryin’, which sold 872,000 copies during its first week out and 1.6 million after just 11 days in the stores. The songs steered clear of verbal attacks on other musicians, instead focusing on 50 Cent’s rough times. “Many Men (Wish Death)” chronicled the attempts on his life, but the more jubilant “In Da Club” became a dance-floor favorite. The advance buzz for the record was so great that even the austere New York Times published a thousand-word profile upon its debut. Writer Lola Ogunnaike revealed herself a fan of Get Rich or Die Tryin’. “Filled with macho tales of drugs, murder and firearms, 50’s debut celebrates life in a morally bankrupt world,” she wrote.

Most reviewers were also unapologetically enthusiastic. New Statesman writer Ted Kessler found 50 Cent’s record possessed of “something for everybody,” with the Dre/Eminem production team giving it “a dense, clubby soundscape featuring enough moody pop bounce to keep him in the singles chart until Christmas. To this, 50 Cent adds a slurred, stoned vocal style that sounds as casual as if he’s just ordering a pizza on the telephone.” A journalist for London’s Observer newspaper, Kitty Empire declared it “something of a street opera. The jousting match between the themes of life and death, of mortality and survival, in hip hop is an intricate and mesmerising one-and one that has found an especially absorbing performer in 50 Cent.”

50 Cent spent much of the summer of 2003 touring with Jay-Z, and the year ended with Get Rich or Die Tryin’ beating out Norah Jones as the top-selling release of the year. It also earned him five Grammy nominations. He moved into his new home, a 48,000-square-foot Connecticut mansion once owned by boxer Mike Tyson. He claims there is still a contract out on his life, and both he and his young son wear bulletproof vests in public and travel in armor-plated vehicles. He was also romantically linked with actress Vivica A. Fox, several years his senior. Despite his newfound fame and fortune, the gulf between his former life as a Queens high-school drop-out and the new, immensely rich music-industry player became apparent sometimes at upscale business meetings in posh Manhattan eateries. “I’m used to restaurants that sell french fries, you know what I mean?,” he said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly’s Rob Brunner. “Some of this stuff on the menu, I’m like, ‘What’s this?’ I’m experiencing different things. It’s all new to me.”