BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY Curtis James Jackson III born July 6, 1975, better known by his stage name 50 Cent, is an American rapper, entrepreneur, investor, and actor. He rose to fame with the release of his albums Get Rich or Die Tryin' (2003) and The Massacre (2005). His album Get Rich or Die Tryin' has been certified eight times platinum by the RIAA.
Born in the South Jamaica neighbourhood of the borough of Queens, New York City, Jackson began drug dealing at the age of twelve during the 1980s crack epidemic. After leaving drug dealing to pursue a rap career, he was shot at and struck by nine bullets during an incident in 2000. After releasing his album Guess Who's Back? in 2002, Jackson was discovered by rapper Eminem and signed to Interscope Records. With the help of Eminem and Dr. Dre, who produced his first major commercial successes, Jackson became one of the world's highest selling rappers. In 2003, he founded the record label G-Unit Records, which signed several successful rappers such as Young Buck, Lloyd Banks, and Tony Yayo.
Jackson has engaged in feuds with other rappers including Ja Rule, Nas, Fat Joe, Jadakiss, Cam'ron, Puff Daddy, Rick Ross, and former G-Unit members The Game and Young Buck. He has also pursued an acting career, appearing in the semi-autobiographical film Get Rich or Die Tryin' in 2005, the Iraq War film Home of the Brave in 2006, and Righteous Kill in 2008. 50 Cent was ranked as the sixth-best artist of the 2000s by Bill board magazine. The magazine also ranked him as the fourth top male artist and as the third top rapper behind Eminem and Nelly. Billboard magazine also ranked him as the sixth best and most successful Hot 100 Artist of the 2000s and as the number one rap artist of the 2000s. Bill board ranked his album Get Rich or Die Tryin' as the twelfth best album of the 2000s and his album The Massacre as the 37th best album of the 2000s. 50 Cent is currently working on his fifth studio album, Street King Immortal, which is to be released in Spring 2013.
Early life
Curtis Jackson III was born and raised in South Jamaica, a poverty-stricken urban neighborhood in Queens, New York City. He was raised solely by his mother, Sabrina, who gave birth to him at the age of fifteen. 50 Cent stated that his mother worked as a cocaine dealer and was a lesbian. The line "Coming up I was confused, my mommy kissing a girl" from Hate It or Love It featuring The Game also refers to his mother's sexuality. In 1983, she became unconscious after having consumed a drugged drink and eventually died as a result of the gas in her apartment turned on amidst closed windows. Following her death, Jackson moved into his grandparents' house with his eight aunts and uncles. He recalls, "My grandmother told me, 'Your mother's not coming home. She's not gonna come back to pick you up. You're gonna stay with us now.' That's when I started adjusting to the streets a little bit".
At age eleven, Jackson started boxing. The following year, Jackson started working with narcotics but informed his grandparents he attended school programs. During this time, he began bringing guns and drug money to school. When Jackson was fourteen years old, a neighbor opened a boxing gym for local youth. He recalled: "When I wasn't killing time in school, I was sparring in the gym or selling crack on the strip." In the mid-1980s, Jackson competed in the Junior Olympics as an amateur boxer. He later stated: "I was competitive in the ring and hip-hop is competitive too... I think rappers condition themselves like boxers, so they all kind of feel like they're the champ". At the age of sixteen, he was caught by metal detectors at Andrew Jackson High School. He later explained that he was embarrassed by his subsequent arrest and confessed to his grandmother that he was selling drugs.
Afterwards, Jackson was sent to correctional boot camp. Following his release, he adopted the nickname "50 Cent" as a metaphor for "change". The name was derived from Kelvin Martin, a Brooklyn robber known as "50 Cent". Jackson chose the name "because it says everything I want it to say. I'm the same kind of person 50 Cent was. I provide for myself by any means".
Music career
1996–1999: Early career
In 1996, when he was 21 years old, Jackson started rapping in a friend's basement. He used turntables to record over instrumentals. Another friend introduced him to Jam Master Jay of Run-DMC who was organizing his label Jam Master Jay Records. Jay taught Jackson how to count bars, write choruses, structure songs, and create a record. Jackson's first official appearance was on a song titled "React" with the group Onyx on their 1998 album Shut 'Em Down. He credited Jam Master Jay as an influence who helped him improve his ability to write hooks. Jay produced Jackson's first album. The album was shelved and never released.
In 1999, after leaving Jam Master Jay, the platinum-selling producers Trackmasters took notice of Jackson and signed him to Columbia Records. They sent him to a studio in Upstate New York where he produced thirty-six songs in two weeks. Eighteen were included on his unofficially released album, Power of the Dollar in 2000. He also started the now-defunct Hollow Point Entertainment with former G-Unit affiliate Bang 'Em Smurf.
Jackson's popularity increased after the controversial underground single, "How to Rob", which he wrote in thirty minutes while in a car on the way to his studio. The track comically explains how he would rob famous artists. He explained the reasoning behind song's content as, "There's a hundred artists on that label, you gotta separate yourself from that group and make yourself relevant". Rappers Jay-Z, Kurupt, Sticky Fingaz, Big Pun, DMX, Wyclef Jean and the Wu-Tang Clan replied to the song and Nas, who received the track positively, invited Jackson to travel on a promotional tour for his Nastradamus album. The song was intended to be released with "Thug Love" featuring Destiny's Child, but two days before he was scheduled to film the "Thug Love" music video, Jackson was shot and confined to a hospital due to his injuries.
2000–2001: Shooting
On May 24, 2000, Jackson was attacked by a gunman, alleged to be Darryl "Hommo" Baum, outside his grandmother's former home in South Jamaica, Queens. He went into a friend's car, but was asked to return to the house to get jewelry.
His son was in the house, while his grandmother was in the front yard. Upon returning to the back seat of the car and already seated, another car pulled up nearby. An assailant then walked up to Jackson's left side with a 9mm handgun and fired nine shots at close range. He was shot nine times: in the hand (a round hit his right thumb, to where the bullet passed through and out his little finger), arm, hip, both legs, chest, and his face (his left cheek). The face wound resulted in a swollen tongue, the loss of a wisdom tooth, and a small slur in his voice. (He maintains a bullet fragment in his tongue because it was thought that taking it out would further damage his nerves and taste buds.) His friend also sustained a gunshot wound to the hand. They were driven to the hospital where Jackson spent thirteen days.
Baum, the alleged shooter, was killed three weeks later. He was also Mike Tyson's close friend and bodyguard.
Jackson recalled the incident saying, "It happens so fast that you don't even get a chance to shoot back.... I was scared the whole time.... I was looking in the rear-view mirror like, 'Oh @#!*% , somebody shot me in the face! It burns, burns, burns.'" In his autobiography, From Pieces to Weight: Once upon a Time in Southside Queens, he wrote, "After I got shot nine times at close range and didn't die, I started to think that I must have a purpose in life... How much more damage could that shell have done? Give me an inch in this direction or that one, and I'm gone". He used a walker for the first six weeks and fully recovered after five months. When he left the hospital, he stayed in the Poconos with his then-girlfriend and son. His workout regimen helped him attain his muscular physique. While in the hospital, Jackson signed a publishing deal with Columbia Records. However, he was dropped from the label and "blacklisted" in the recording industry because of his song "Ghetto Qu'ran".
Unable to find a studio to work with in the U.S, he traveled to Canada. Along with his business partner Sha Money XL, he recorded over thirty songs for mixtapes, with the purpose of building a reputation.
According to Shady Records A&R Marc Labelle in an interview with HitQuarters, Jackson shrewdly used the mixtape circuit to his own advantage saying, "He took all the hottest beats from every artist and flipped them with better hooks. They then got into all the markets on the mixtapes and all the mixtape DJs were messing with them." Jackson's popularity rose and in 2002, he released material independently on the mixtape, Guess Who's Back?. Beginning to attract interest, and now backed by G-Unit, Jackson continued to release music including 50 Cent Is the Future. The mixtape revisited material by Jay-Z and Raphael Saadiq.
2002–2009: Rise to fame
In 2002, Eminem listened to a copy of Jackson's Guess Who's Back? CD. He received the CD through Jackson's attorney, who was working with Eminem's manager Paul Rosenberg.Impressed with the album, Eminem invited Jackson to fly to Los Angeles, where he was introduced to Dr. Dre. After signing a $1 million record deal, Jackson released the mixtape,No Mercy, No Fear. It featured one new track, "Wanksta", which was put on Eminem's 8 Mile soundtrack. He was also signed to Chris Lighty's Violator Management and Sha Money XL's Money Management Group.
In February 2003, Jackson released his commercial debut album, Get Rich or Die Tryin'. described it as "probably the most hyped debut album by a rap artist in about a decade".Rolling Stone noted the album for its "dark synth grooves, buzzy keyboards and a persistently funky bounce" with Jackson complementing the production in "an unflappable, laid-back flow".Get Rich or Die Tryin' debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, selling 872,000 copies in the first four days. The lead single, "In da Club", which The Source noted for its "blaring horns, funky organs, guitar riffs and sparse hand claps",broke a Billboard record as the most listened-to song in radio history within a week.
Interscope granted Jackson his own label, G-Unit Records in 2003. He signed Lloyd Banks, Tony Yayo, and Young Buck as the established members of G-Unit. The Game was later signed under a joint venture with Dr. Dre's Aftermath Entertainment.
In March 2005, Jackson's second commercial album, The Massacre, sold 1.14 million copies in the first four days-the highest in an abbreviated sales cycle- and peaked at number one on the Bill board 200 for six weeks.
He became the first solo artist to have three singles on the Billboard top five in the same week with "Candy Shop", "Disco Inferno", and "How We Do". Rolling Stone noted that "50's secret weapon is his singing voice - the deceptively amateur-sounding tenor croon that he deploys on almost every chorus".
After The Game's departure, Jackson signed singer Olivia and rap veterans Mobb Deep to G-Unit Records. Spider Loc, M.O.P., 40 Glocc and Young Hot Rod later joined the label. Jackson expressed interest in working with rappers outside of G-Unit, such as Lil' Scrappy of BME, LL Cool J from Def Jam, Mase from Bad Boy, and Freeway of Roc-A-Fella, some of whom he recorded with. In September 2007, he released his third album Curtis, which was inspired by his life before Get Rich or Die Tryin'. It debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, selling 691,000 units in the first week,behind Kanye West's Graduation, whom he had a sales competition with, as both albums were released on the same day.
He confirmed on TRL on September 10, 2008 that his fourth studio album, Before I Self Destruct, will be "done and released in November". On May 18, 2009, Jackson released a song entitled "Ok, You're Right". The song was produced by Dr. Dre and was included in Before I Self Destruct. In fall 2009, 50 Cent appeared in the new season of VH1's Behind The Music. On September 3, 2009, months upon the release of Before I Self Destruct, Jackson posted a video for the Soundkillers' Phoenix produced track "Flight 187" which introduced his mixtape, the 50th LAW, and was also featured as a bonus track on his iTunes release of Before I Self Destruct. The song ignited speculation that there was tension between rapper 50 Cent and Jay Z for Jackson's comments in the song.
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