Article Bashing 50 Cent: Get Rich Or Lie Tryin'

[SNaKe]

GUnitWorld.com: Would you pay 50 cents for a cup of Vanilla Ice? OK, we know celebrities exaggerate and otherwise, well, enhance the obstacles they have supposedly overcome -- all in the name of elusive "street cred." It's a routine part of the "rags to riches" mythology of self-promotion in the entertainment marketplace. But a rogerebert.com reader writes in to say:

Curtis Jackson was not shot nine times, it was three. And it was not drug related. It happened after he had a record deal. Curtis Jackson did not go to prison. It was a 'shock incarceration' boot camp ala Maury Povich. Curtis Jackson used a 16yr old girl to hide his drugs.

"Get Rich or Die Tryin' " is the real life "CB4" of the 21st century.
A bit of Google research seems to confirm our correspondent on the particulars (though we make no comparison to "CB4," which was such a miserable experience that we've blocked it from memory). See this story, dated May 24, 2000 (before the release of 50's first album), and notice that it says nine shots were fired, but that Jackson was actually hit three times:
50 Cent, the rapper who delivered last year's funny but abrasive "How To Rob...," was shot once in each leg and once in the jaw Wednesday in New York City. He is in stable condition at Jamaica Hospital in Queens.

Police spokesperson Det. Joseph Pentagelo confirmed that the 24-year-old rapper, who was born Curtis Jackson, and an associate, 22-year-old Alton Brown, were sitting in a parked car in the Jamaica section of Queens, when an unknown assailant pulled up beside them in a blue General Motors car and fired nine shots with a 9MM handgun. Brown sustained a gunshot wound to the hand. The assault occurred at 11:22am.

After the shooting, the victims drove themselves to a nearby hospital. Fifty's injuries are not life threatening, said Hospital spokesperson Michael Hink, who added that he was about to go into surgery in the early evening....
At least one later report about the alleged "nine shots," on MTV.com, claimed Jackson was shot once in the cheek, once in the hand, and seven times in the legs.

Jackson's own accounts of his shooting can be found in interviews posted on his official site. Like this one:
[50 Cent:]... I got shot, two days before I was supposed to shoot the video. I got shot up so I wasn't physically able to, shoot the video.

Nima: How did that shoot-up change your life?

50 Cent: I feel like.. it changes your life a lil bit. Like when you get shot at nine times, you start makin a dream for a reason. You got a purpose.. I'm still tryin to figure out what my purpose is... *pus*y*

You can compare the Hollywood version of Jackson's life in "Get Rich or Die Tryin'" with these court documents posted on thesmokinggun.com. The site's intro says:
FEBRUARY 27 [2003] -- So, what kind of a drug dealer was gangsta rapper 50 Cent, the 27-year-old Eminem protege whose debut record has been a chart-topping hit? Well, as a pusher, he made a girl do the dirty work, with his 16-year-old accomplice hiding their crack cocaine stash in her underpants, according to New York court records. 50 Cent -- known as Curtis Jackson in indictments and recording contracts--was arrested twice in 1994 (the busts came three weeks apart) on felony drug charges. On June 29, Jackson and Taiesha Douse, his 16-year-old cohort, were nailed for selling four vials of cocaine to an undercover NYPD officer. According to court records... Jackson steered the cop to Douse, who carried out the hand-to-hand transaction. When searched, Douse was found to be hiding 36 vials of crack in her panties and had 12 packets of heroin in a pants pocket, an NYPD evidence voucher shows. A lab analysis showed the pair's product to be 83.6 percent pure, so to speak. Jackson was nailed again on July 19, when cops -- executing a search warrant at his Queens home -- discovered heroin and crack (rocks were hidden in a boot and a dresser drawer), drug packaging material, and a starter gun, which cops found sitting on top of a safe in Jackson's bedroom. Jackson pleaded out to both cases and was hit with a concurrent sentence of 3-9 years in prison. But the wannabe star, 19 at the time, avoided hard time, instead spending only seven months in a youth "shock incarceration" boot camp in upstate Beaver Dams.
Jackson was the subject of a 2003 exposй in the Eminem-hater hip-hop magazine The Source, which called him out as a snitch and a phony.

In May of 2005, Jackson struck another plea deal to avoid jail after being charged with assaulting three women when he jumped into the crowd after being squirted with water at a 2004 concert:
Rapper 50 Cent has been ordered to stay clean of drugs and take an anger management course to avoid spending time in jail.

The US star was charged with assaulting three women at a concert last year after leaping into the crowd.

A judge in Springfield, Massachusetts, said if the rapper - real name Curtis Jackson - adhered to the conditions, the charges would be dropped.

Two women alleged he trampled on them while a third said she was punched.
Lemme see you raise your hands in the air, now: "P.I.M.P." or "Wanksta"?

P.S. An unauthorized DVD documentary, "50 Cent: Refuse 2 Die," just hit the stores and is said to chronicle "his inspirational journey from the streets to the stage and his unprecedented acceptance into the heart of mainstream culture. The DVD features interviews with 50 Cent

[Shadyluva]

wow, i really believed that 50 got shot 9 times, guess i was wrong, 3 times

[j_shady]

haha Straight Outta Loca$h...if you've seen CB4 you'd know what i'm talking about hah

50 said it himself that rappers, ALL RAPPERS (so he's including himself) lie about 95% when writing their songs cuz the shit they say are only to sell records