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About the Dollar

Loosie interviews the 50 Cent, the man who might be king.

by Douglas Passion | 2003.02.06

You've heard the Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson story. Blacklisted from the music industry after making "How to Rob", he disappeared into the labyrinth of Queens drug-dealing. Several trips to the hospital later, he reignited his career with a series of heavily-bootlegged mixtapes which circulated the tri-state. Now, with a record deal from Shady/Aftermath and an album about to drop in early February, Jackson stands poised to become one of the biggest names in Hip-Hop.

In the West and the South, people are known for selling records out of the trunk. New York is so caught up in the industry. I wondered when another artist would come out of New York who had built their name by themselves.

It would be hard to sell something out of the trunk of your car in New York. Once it gets hot, the bootleggers are going to sell it against you.

And you’ll be selling it for fifteen and the bootlegger will have it for five.

[laughter] For real. That market is shot for New York. But you can use the mixtape circuit to the point that it promotes you, to the point that they know they’re interested in picking up your CD because there’s a consistency. I feel like consistency is the key to all success.

By the time you’d gotten on Hot97 with Flex, the buzz on the street felt real. It wasn’t necessarily like a record company had put up a bunch of 50 Cent posters.

Yeah, I think the things the majors do to promote an artist are effective after an artist does what I did. I think you should separate yourself from the roster. If you’re on a major, and got a hundred acts on the label with you, you’ve got to give them a reason to think that you’re going to win. Without getting into the street and putting in work, I don’t see how you’re going to…you drop your first single and the single is out – there’s a lot of people like me that know there’s a lot of one-hit wonders. Once you put out that hit I’m like ‘that’s hot’ – I’m waiting for the next record though. If the next record coming is hot, I’m going to go buy it.

What were the circumstances that reulsted in you landing at Shady Records?

My attorney works close with Paul Rosenberg, who was Eminem’s manager. And he gave him the CD when Em was in the middle of finishing up The Eminem Show. When he finished the record, he listened to it and he was excited and told Dre about it. They called for me to come out. It was kind of weird, they called me Friday at 9:00 like ‘yo, we need to see him tomorrow.’ I already had a few situations set up, Universal, Warner Brothers, Jive, J Records, Capitol. There was a little bidding war going on.

What was it you saw in Shady Records that made you sign with them?

After I left back from Los Angeles after meeting with Dre and Em, the numbers went crazy. Labels offered me as much as 1.6 million to do a deal – and I ended up still doing the deal with Em and Dre for a million dollars because creatively, I can’t get what I can get here anywhere else.

What kind of creativity do they offer?

I know creatively I can kind of do what I want and relationship-wise, now, I’m totally open to what they’re saying because they want the best for me, period. You know when someone’s telling you ‘you should do it like this’ but you don’t really trust their opinion? How can you listen to them? [With Dre and Em] I’ll stop and look at it and go ‘yo, you’re right, I’ll change that.’

People enjoy the fact that you’re willing to say pretty much anything on a song.

I say exactly what I’m thinking. My grandfather is the same way, that’s where I get that shit from. If it’s no truth to it, it’s not entertaining. I think so many people agree with the things I’m saying. Like “How to Rob” is wack if I’m just lying, making it up. But you talking about things that really had flaws in peoples’ characters in there.

Don’t you have enough enemies?

I can stand a few more.

There’s been a lot of beef in Hip-Hop lately. Other times people are vague about who they’re talking about. On record guys will be sending sideways remarks back and forth, but you’ll see Jay-Z and Fat Joe in a club at the same table.

It’s crazy. A lot of it is wrestling. It’s entertainment. They’ll say whatever they say and then they’ll see each other and it’s a different vibe.

Is that the case with you?

Absolutely not. If I don’t vibe with them, I don’t vibe with them. I’m not a VJ. You know how video DJs seem to like everybody? I don’t care. There are certain people I’m not going to mix with and we’re not going to be cool. Other people I can.

Obviously the most public feud of yours is the one with Ja-Rule. How do you see that being resolved?

I don’t know. I think me and Ja-Rule is married. ‘Til death do us part. I don’t see how someone who has had as much success as Ja-Rule still maintains 50 Cent as his focal point.

When he was on the radio in NYC he claimed you have a restraining order against him.

He’s a clown, man. That inspired that whole CD you heard. They did that and two days later I put it on the street. I made all those records right after I heard he was trying to do that. Homie weigh a hundred and ten pounds with change in his pocket. Soaking wet. He never hurt nothing in his life. It’s obvious he would like to portray something that he’s not. I can’t see how a kid would look at him and want to be him when he doesn’t even want to be him. He wants to be DMX or Tupac Shakur.

Weren’t there incidents where you had taken chains from him?

Yup. We got into a little squabble and it wasn’t no big deal. None of the altercations we’ve been in nobody has been seriously hurt. But yeah, I left the situation with his jewelry.

Was that the origin of the beef or did it start before that?

It was before that. A friend of mine robbed him. And [Ja-Rule] seen me in the club, kicking it with the kid. And he treated me different ever since. Rappers, they feel like you they peer. The kid in the hood could just go upside they head right now, do whatever. [Rappers} feel like they have something to lose so they won’t go at him. But when they feel like you they peer – you rap like they rap – they’ll act like they got beef with you ‘cause you a rapper. It’s obvious they the corniest crew, period. Murderers don’t run around saying ‘I’m a murderer.’

Em has beef with Benzino; you have beef with Ja-Rule. Are any of these going to intersect?

Em doesn’t even have beef with Benzino. If he had a beef with him, I’d be right in the middle of it. But it ain’t no real beef. On every record that he’s saying something about Em, he’s making a circle around me. It’s a publicity attempt, that’s all.

It’s odd – the guy who runs The Source is trying to come at rappers.

It’s crazy. It’s going to the point that if you see 50 Cent in The Source magazine, it’s going to be because they got a picture of me at a party -- in the back of the magazine. It don’t even make sense -- if they keep going where they headed, Em’s going to go at the magazine itself. From there, how do you get a fair shot when they try to rate your record? If they rate my album, they going to get it right after they buy it in the store. I won’t even send it to them. To hell with’em.

Hey, they might bootleg your albums.

The bootleggers got me where I’m at. This album is going to be bootlegged crazy. Not to say that my head is big or nothing like that, but the quality of the music at this point is [so good] – and Dr. Dre and Eminem is responsible for that.

So you’re not going to stabbing anyone over releasing your album early?

Aw, hell no! It’s all good. You gotta look at the bootlegger and realize he’s trying to make a few dollars to feed his people.

Personally, sometimes I’d rather the dude selling the CD on the streets get five bucks than the artist get the dollar in royalties.

Right. Listen man, I think music itself is the biggest promotion for an artist.

Take Nelly, for example, he has to be doing something right with the music to sell so many records.

Absolutely. Certain artists, they disagree with how Nelly sell records. I guess he come from a different walk of life. Me, I’m not compromising myself.

From between the “How to Rob” and now, all you’ve heard about is your violent incidents. Are people are going to eat of those bullet wounds?

Absolutely. People make the comparison to me and Tupac. Maybe it’s because I’m the next rapper to get shot and I’m aggressive, but the comparison is so scary because Tupac’s shoes are so big nobody can walk. You feel me? You got a guy that’s still dropping number one albums and been dead how long?

The other problem is that he got murked.

Don’t make me that. Make me something else. That’s what they’d like to see. [laugher]

That’s got to be unsettling, if that’s what people are predicting for your future.

If so, then so be it. [laughter]

And with the amount of records you make, they might have eight years of 50 Cent’s record stored up.

In fact, we might go ahead and do that shit.

You got the chance to make a song with Biggie.

That was hot. we got the vocals, it didn’t have no beat, no nothing. Whoo-Kid stole it off somebody’s table…Biggie vocals. Red Spider produced the track. I laid the vocals and wrote the chorus.

Will that make the album?

It might. They trying to clear the record now. We’ll see what happens.

I heard those Biggie vocals before on the Life After Death album.

Word? You heard the one on "The Realest"? I never heard that one before. I didn’t know that…that’s good. I’m glad they put it out…now it’s all over the radio again. It was overlooked. I had to rap about Biggie ‘cause I wasn’t trying to outshine him on the record. That’s vintage Big right there.

Eminem ripped his verse on “Dead Wrong”, but there was nothing he could do. That was probably from ’95 and Biggie was still that nasty.

Hip-Hop changed. It went from being witty to talking about what was actually going on in the streets. And it went from that to what Big and them was doing. Right off the corner, like when Illmatic came. I always go left. Right now, they still doing that R&B single gotta be for the girls. The majority of the artists thatput out a single target women. I’m looking at Dre and them doing 8 million and ain’t no record on there nice. If you not in love, how you making records like that?

Could you have had this same success a few years ago if Columbia had put out your material?

I was making records the entire time I was gone. I just wasn’t able to get the release from Columbia. Columbia’s the Titanic – that boat got a whole in it. “Wankster” was a year old when it came out. I felt like if I had been able to release those records a year before, it would have been effective still. I had to fall back. Timing is everything in the record business. You can do the wrong deal because the wrong deal is available. If you’re not patient, you’ll make mistakes. I don’t have no plan B. It’s either I do music or I go back to the hood. And there ain’t much there for me.

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