50 Cent Walks The Talk

[Nu Syd]

Sounds like a thug, preaches like a motivational speaker. Grant Smithies chats to cash rich 50 Cent.

Though rich beyond his wildest dreams, New York rapper Curtis Jackson has a stage name that sounds cheap, inconsequential, like something you would drop into a parking meter.

Got change for a dollar? That's right, we're talking about 50 Cent, the deadpan-voiced ex-thug who invited us all to "drink Bacardi like it's your birthday" on massive local hit "In Da Club" a few years back.

It was a tune so huge it crossed over from sweaty New York hip-hop clubs to mainstream radio worldwide. By the end of 2003 you could even hear it booming out between Abba's "Dancing Queen" and the Village People's "YMCA" at office Christmas parties full of rhythmically challenged white folks.

Would 50 be appalled? Hell, no - he's too busy counting his cash. That song helped him become one of the biggest rap stars in the world. So big that the touring never ends, and he'll be back in New Zealand in February, performing in Christchurch and then in Wellington.

"I'm looking forward to it, man" he drawls from G-Unit office in Manhattan. "People better get ready for some serious energy. It's my intention to become a huge star in your country, so I'm gonna work hard to leave an impression."

Whatever you might think of his music, 50 Cent is a fascinating guy. Check out the highly homo-erotic album covers for 2003's Get Rich Or Die Tryin' (which has sold more than 10 million copies worldwide) and this year's The Massacre, and he's quite a spectacle - oiled up, sinewy, his body so muscle-heavy it looks like a big black sack full of basketballs.

His speaking voice, like his rapping, is a stern monotone. Initially you think he's a tad dense, but the longer you talk to him, the more charismatic he reveals himself to be.

The most interesting thing about him, perhaps, is that 50 Cent really has lived the kind of sad, colourful, ruthlessly macho life most cred-hungry young gangsta rappers only pretend they've lived. He never knew his father, his drug hustling mother Sabrina was shot dead when he was eight, and he started selling crack on the street when he was 12. He was jailed for three years for crack cocaine possession in the mid-90s, and then later for gun possession.

"Then I had my son in 1997 and my priorities changed. I wasn't able to accept the same repercussions for my actions any more, because if I was killed, there'd be no one around to take care of him. That's when I started writing music fulltime," he says.

After the superb 1999 single "How To Rob", in which 50 fantasises about attacking some of hip-hop's most powerful rappers, fame came swiftly, and retribution too. With two months he was badly stabbed, and then in May, 2000, 50 was shot nine times at close range while he sat in the back seat of a car. Shots pierced his cheek, hand and thighs. Miraculously he survived, though anxiety about the incident means that he never appears in public without wearing a bulletproof vest.

After the shooting, Columbia Records dropped him for being "too controversial", and he was immediately signed to a joint-venture record deal by the most successful rapper in the world, Eminem, and the most successful hip-hop producer, Dr Dre. Now he lives a ghetto fabulous version of the American dream, with millions in the bank, Ferraris and Porsches, and mansions in Long Island, Baltimore and Connecticut.

"I owe a lot to Em and Dre, but mainly I got to where I am through hard work," says 50, sounding like a motivational speaker. "I realised early that I had to be successful at what I do, because I don't have a Plan B. I knew I had the talent; I just needed to find the opportunity."

In reality, 50's raps are serviceable rather than extraordinary, but he is an able storyteller, capable of mixing genuine street knowledge with irresistibly catchy pop hooks. Of course, his dramatic life story has led to some great free marketing, with major profiles turning up in the New York Times and the Washington Post as well as the music press.

"People have suggested that I'm only this popular because I've been shot!" he says, exasperated. "They're obsessed with violence."

Does he think of himself as a violent man? "No. If you put me in a situation where I feel I have no choice, then I'll take care of business. But do I look for those situations? No. I started selling drugs and carrying guns for the same reason as most ghetto kids - instant gratification.

"If you're good at selling drugs, you can buy yourself a nice BMW in six months, for cash. So try telling a ghetto kid, look son, you go to school for six more years, then college for four more after that, then pay your tuition bills, and you might be lucky enough to buy a used Toyota. Kids will laugh at you."

And he laughs too at this point, but it is the cold, joyless laugh of someone who has done an awful lot of crying.

"But the hustler's lifestyle only ends in two ways. You end up dead or in jail. If you look at the hospital records for the area of Queens where I come from, you'll find an endless line of young black men coming in with serious knife and gun-shot wounds. Now this is serious, and sad, but reporters just want to sensationalise the violence for entertainment, which is exactly what they accuse me of doing. These guys are unbelievable. They say to me - '50, what does it physically feel like to get shot?' I say, 'It is no fun. It really hurts. Would you like to try it, because I can help you with that, right after this interview'."

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,350 ... 00,00.html