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Hip-hop star 50 Cent has gone from gangsta to businessman
Nick Lewis, Calgary Herald
Published: Thursday, July 10, 2008

Preview

50 Cent performs with G-Unit and Souljah Boy at Foothills Stadium on Saturday. Tickets available from Ticketmaster.

His fame came only after a brush with brutal violence.

Nine bullets peppered his body after he tried leaving a life of slinging crack on the streets for a career in rap. One 9-mm round pierced his left cheek, leaving a fragment that swelled his tongue. The resulting slur, instead of ending his musical career, only made his flow more distinctive.

Today, Curtis James Jackson III is 50 Cent, a hip-hop mogul whose empire pulled in $150 million US last year.

He's also one of the best-selling rappers of the millennium, having sold 23 million copies of his first three albums, 2003's Get Rich Or Die Tryin', 2005's The Massacre, and 2007's Curtis.

We caught up with Jackson on the phone from New York the week of his rap collective G-Unit's new release, TOS: Terminate On Sight, and right before his second-ever Calgary concert this Saturday at Foothills Stadium.

Q: Happy belated birthday, I know you just turned 33 on July 6. What did you do to celebrate?

A: Thank you. I didn't do much, I just stayed at home with my grandparents. It was nice to not have so many people in my face.

Q: I know that your new record, Before I Self Destruct, was meant to come out in March, but you delayed it until later this year. Was that because you were releasing the G-Unit album?

A: No, with Before I Self Destruct, what happened is I started writing to that concept, but then I put the Curtis album out. And so the material for Before I Self Destruct started getting dated and I needed to rewrite some things. But I'm still recording stuff for Before I Self Destruct.

Q: With a title like that, do you mean to imply that one day you'll implode?

A: Well, that's the general process of artists. It has to do with the public more than it has to do with them, because you become something in the public that you weren't. The public decides that you're going to be an international superstar, and so when you write from a perspective you find significant, they'll find some doubt. Like, "Why are you still writing about the 'hood?" But the struggle always stands out in your head. As soon as you make it, you look back on how far you came. And that's the process I write from.

Q: As you get older and more successful, you get further away from your life on the street and closer to being a suburban businessman. Does it get harder to make that connection to violence now that you've moved away from it?

A: I haven't experienced half the gangsta stuff that's projected through the music. Because I'm recreating it until I find I've done it perfectly. And then I'll move away from it and be inspired to do something differently. A lot of times when an artist is writing about a moment, they'll recall the mood, not specifics, you see what I'm saying?

And you have to be conscious to make that connection these days, because you're not under the same circumstances. Writing Get Rich Or Die Tryin' was real easy, because that's what I was feeling at the time. The aggressive nature of the music that we put out on mixtapes, we're conditioned for that. Writing something like Ayo Technology (with Justin Timberlake), that's difficult for me because I'm doing something different.

Q: You've made Forbes list of top-earning celebrities for a couple of years now, and you got a lot of attention for your stake of the Vitamin Water sale to Coca-Cola, which personally netted you $400 million. What do you credit your success in business to?

A: Well, just my gut. Initially when I decided to explore the possibility of doing business with Vitamin Water, it was a privately owned company based in Queens. They were in the infant stage of distribution. It was just the right thing for me, for me and my lifestyle. I don't drink or use drugs or anything, and so when I was training, I was just looking for a supplement for soda. I was drinking so much water that I just wanted something with a bit of taste to it. And it was perfect. And the opportunity proved much greater than I anticipated.

Q: I'm sorry to hear that your Long Island house burned down in May, and I know that your son's mom Shaniqua Tompkins accused you of arson in the media. Have you managed to clear your name in that?

A: I had nothing to clear, I was on a movie set in Louisiana at that point. That situation is based on a relationship that doesn't exist anymore. The relationship wasn't between me and Shaniqua, it was between Shaniqua and my wallet. It still hurts because it's a huge adjustment, financially. Money makes you do crazy things.

I owned that house but I never lived in it.

Q: One of the best lyrics you've written was the autobiographical verse on The Mechanic from 2007's Curtis.

A: Yeah, yeah. "My mom told her baby boy the Lord was gonna bless us / Then dope bought us the (expletive) that food stamps wouldn't get us / And they don't understand we were just trying to make it / But where I'm from when you want (expletive) you gotta take it."

Those lyrics are from a child's perspective. It was a kid's confusion, someone who doesn't even know there's something wrong with his mom selling dope, he sees it as the Lord's blessing. It was totally the wrong direction at the time. But early on, my mom didn't see public assistance as an option for me. She tried to take care of me the best way she could. And she did. To the point that every time I saw her, it felt like Christmas. Sure, she sacrificed time with me to make the finances necessary to provide a life for me. Then when she passed when I was eight, the only people I could make reference to who had nice things were the people in her life.

My grandparents had nine kids, and my mom was the youngest. I ended up replacing my mom as the youngest child. With my grandfather working all the time, and my grandmother at home, ain't no money around. There's nine mouths to feed. And when you look away from that and the only people with nice things is the people in your mom's life, and they're out there hustling, it doesn't seem like an option, it seems like the only option.

It was only when I got older that I could make the decision that there was something better for me, and that's what music is to me.

Q: Speaking of music, there's been a lot of recent press about your opening act, Souljah Boy, from Ice-T who says he single-handedly ruined hip hop, to Kanye West, who says he's a genius. What do you think about him?

A: At 16 years old, to be able to create the production, write the song and then make a dance for it, I think that's genius status. Souljah Boy, the lyricism isn't complex, but the fact that it connected, even if it's only with kids Souljah Boy's age, that's great. The average lifespan of an artist is one song. If he can get past that and move on to the next record, he'll develop.

Ice-T, you can't take anything away from him, either, but I don't think that's cool of him. I understand his standpoint, because he's conscious of the artform and he remembers what it used to be like. Hip hop was so competitive that you couldn't be a part of it just because you wrote a song. But now we're in a different era where you gotta be able to get with the times. People don't want to hear complex artists, that's why Nas is losing his audience. Now people just want to enjoy themselves, and you've gotta adjust. If you want to make music just for yourself, keep it on your iPod.

Q: Speaking of Kanye, you said last year if he outsold you that you'd retire. What made you change your mind? With all your assets, you don't need to work another day in your life.

A: Oh, I know. My passion for music is what keeps me going. Like (Eminem). Em is the largest hip-hop artist, period. I'm the largest touring hip-hop artist. I've been more places, physically, to perform, as a representative of the artform, than anyone else in hip hop. And the biggest lesson I learned is that your consistency means nothing. A hip-hop consumer is worse than a crackhead. A crackhead will develop a relationship with a dealer. A hip-hop consumer will buy from whoever is selling, and what you did for him in the past means nothing.

Q: Keeping on with Kanye, both of you have a lot in common, apart from being on the same label. You both spent time in hospital, both of you had to change the way you rapped because of some accident and both of you are now bigger for it. Are you guys closer friends than that public feud suggested?

A: Well, we never had a real feud. That was just a friendly competition, for marketing purposes. There was never no beef between me and Kanye, our music is so different that it was probably not a tough decision for most consumers.

See, they'll give Kanye trophies because he's safe. 50 Cent, because I write the harsh realities, I get left out come trophy time. I'm ASCAP Songwriter of the year 2004 and 2006, and my material has allowed me a spot in the minds of the consumer. But it's not being recognized.

I don't get upset by it, because I can stop by the trophy shop and get some on my way home.

Q: Would you ever consider making and giving away a record to the fans like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails recently did?

A: I do it all the time, that's what the mixtape circuit is! See, when you say "mixtape," people think, "material made by an artist for promotional purposes." But if that mixtape is written in song format, what that artist out there is doing is a reflection of 50 Cent. They don't understand it, but I created the concept of freestyling in song format. So when someone calls it a freestyle and it has a hook, that's a 50 Cent concept.

And I did it that way because I didn't have another outlet. I didn't have the opportunity to be recorded and marketed by a company. My company dropped me -- not because I shot someone, but because I was shot! And I lost my outlet. And I had to figure out how to market myself and I did.

And there's a huge difference between a talented rapper and a songwriter, a huge difference. You can go to these places where rappers come to battle, and it's amazing. These guys can use anything, your shirt, your hair, your shoes, the way you look, everything, as a punchline against you. They've conditioned themselves to rap the way you and I speak. But they can't write a song to save their lives. They'll go home after rapping for two, three hours, and they can't figure out what to say to the right beat to change their living conditions. But a songwriter can go create a comfortable lifestyle for himself.

When's the last time you saw Eminem? And do you think he'll have a problem selling records when he returns? That's the difference.

nlewis@theherald.canwest.com

Source: CalgaryHerald.com

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chad sabessar

50cent.....

NEWSKULL

he is the crack head... buck the world indeed

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DAVID BROWN CLOTHING

Tha Unit On Top

Nice read. Fif spoke alot of real shit.

PhillyOG

thanks for this

metal24

what is the interviewer talkin about they are not on the same record label!!!! ye is on def jam!!! get it right dude!!!

Blizzy

plus The Mechanic wasn't on Curtis lol...

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