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50 Cent

A rapper from South Jamaica, Queens, who survived being shot nine times, was signed by Eminem and Dr. Dre, and made the best-selling album of 2003 in the United States.

Origin
Queens, New York City, United States
Years active
1996-present
Genres
gangsta rap, hip hop
Labels
Columbia, Shady, Aftermath, Interscope, G-Unit, Caroline, Capitol
Also known as
Curtis Jackson, Curtis James Jackson III

Queens

Curtis Jackson was born in Queens in 1975 and raised in the South Jamaica neighborhood, by his mother Sabrina and then, after she died in a fire when he was eight, by his grandparents. In 1996 a friend introduced him to Jam Master Jay of Run-DMC, who was starting a label. Jay taught him to count bars, write choruses and structure songs. He took the name 50 Cent as a metaphor for change, after a 1980s Brooklyn robber who went by it.

Trackmasters signed him to Columbia in 1999 and sent him to an upstate New York studio, where he made 36 songs in two weeks. Eighteen of them went onto the album Power of the Dollar. The single How to Rob, in which he described how he would rob famous rappers, drew replies from Jay-Z, Wyclef Jean and the Wu-Tang Clan, among others. On 24 May 2000 he was shot nine times outside his grandmother's former home, spent 13 days in hospital and was left with a slightly slurred voice. Columbia cancelled the album and dropped him.

Shady and Aftermath

With the producer Sha Money XL he recorded more than 30 songs for mixtapes, working in the basement studio of Sha Money's home in Westbury, Long Island. In 2002 Eminem received the mixtape Guess Who's Back? through Jackson's attorney, who worked with Eminem's manager Paul Rosenberg. Impressed, Eminem invited him to Los Angeles and introduced him to Dr. Dre. A $1 million deal followed, and a mixtape, No Mercy, No Fear, carried the new song Wanksta, which also appeared on the 8 Mile soundtrack.

Get Rich or Die Tryin' came out on 6 February 2003 with Dre and Eminem as executive producers. In da Club was the first of seven tracks he recorded in five days with Dre. The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with 872,000 copies in its first week and was the best-selling album of 2003 in the United States. 21 Questions followed In da Club to number one on the Hot 100, and P.I.M.P. reached number three. Many Men (Wish Death) was never an official single.

G-Unit and the sequels

In 2003 Interscope began funding and distributing G-Unit Records, the label of the group he had formed in 2001 with Lloyd Banks and Tony Yayo. The Massacre (2005) sold 1.14 million copies in its first four days and kept the top of the Billboard 200 for six weeks. In the same week he had three singles in the top five, among them Candy Shop with Olivia, which spent nine weeks at number one.

Curtis (2007) was released on the same day as Kanye West's Graduation and sold 691,000 copies against West's 957,000. Its single Ayo Technology, with Justin Timberlake and Timbaland, reached number five on the Hot 100 and number two in the United Kingdom. Before I Self Destruct (2009) debuted at number five. In February 2014 he left Shady, Aftermath and Interscope and signed with Caroline and Capitol, and Animal Ambition entered the Billboard 200 at number four.

Television and legacy

He turned increasingly to television, executive producing and co-starring in Power, which ran on Starz from 2014 to 2020, and several spin-offs. In 2020 he executive produced Pop Smoke's debut album. On 13 February 2022 he was a surprise performer in the Super Bowl LVI halftime show, which won a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Variety Special (Live).

Rolling Stone put Get Rich or Die Tryin' at number 37 on its list of the 100 best albums of the 2000s. Complex wrote in 2018 that it marked the end of the slick, flashy ladies-man rappers and cleared a space for new voices such as Young Jeezy. Neil Kulkarni of Crack wrote the same year that by mixing Southern-style textures with gritty East Coast lyrical content, 50 Cent hit on a template still being explored.

Records

Songs

Eminem, Dr. Dre, G-Unit, Run-DMC

Where to go next

Reference

Writing and criticism

Interviews

Sources

  1. 50 Cent, Wikipedia
  2. Get Rich or Die Tryin', Wikipedia
  3. Complex Classics: a look back at 50 Cent's Get Rich or Die Tryin', Complex (2018-02-06)
  4. The undeniable impact of 50 Cent's debut Get Rich or Die Tryin', Crack Magazine (2018-02-06)
  5. 50 Cent's debut album turns 20: the story of how it was made, Business Insider (2023-02-06)
  6. The man and the machine: on 20 years of 50 Cent and Get Rich or Die Tryin', The Ringer (2023-02-06)