Background and career
Curtis James Jackson III (born July 6, 1975), known professionally as 50 Cent, is an American rapper, actor, television producer, record executive, and businessman. Born in Queens, a borough of New York City, Jackson began pursuing a musical career in 1996. In 1999–2000, he recorded his debut album, Power of the Dollar, for Columbia Records. During a shooting in May 2000, he was struck by nine bullets, causing its release to be canceled and Jackson to be dropped from the label. His 2002 mixtape Guess Who's Back? was discovered by Detroit rapper Eminem, who signed Jackson to his label Shady Records (an imprint of Interscope Records) that year. Jackson's debut studio album, Get Rich or Die Tryin' (2003), was released to critical acclaim and commercial success. Peaking atop the Billboard 200, it spawned the Billboard Hot 100-number one singles "In da Club" and "21 Questions" (featuring Nate Dogg), and received Multiple Platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Also in 2003, he launched the record label G-Unit Records, namesake of a hip-hop group he formed two years earlier; the label's initial signees were its members, fellow East Coast rappers Lloyd Banks and Tony Yayo. His second album, The Massacre (2005), met with continued success, yielding his third number-one single, "Candy Shop" (featuring Olivia). He took a lighter, more commercially oriented approach with his third and fourth albums, Curtis (2007) and Before I Self Destruct (2009)—both of which witnessed critical and commercial declines—and aimed for a return to his roots with his fifth album, Animal Ambition (2014), which received mixed reviews. He has since focused on television and media, having executive-produced and starred in the television series Power (2014–2020), as well as its numerous spin-offs under his company G-Unit Films and Television Inc. Jackson has sold over 30 million albums worldwide and earned several accolades, including a Grammy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, 13 Billboard Music Awards, 6 World Music Awards, 3 American Music Awards, and 4 BET Awards. He starred in the semi-autobiographical film Get Rich or Die Tryin' (2005), which was critically panned. He also appeared in the war film Home of the Brave (2006) and the crime thriller Righteous Kill (2008). Billboard ranked Jackson 17th on its "50 Greatest Rappers" list in 2023, and named him the sixth top artist of the 2000s decade. Rolling Stone ranked Get Rich or Die Tryin' and "In da Club" in its lists of the "100 Best Albums of the 2000s" and "100 Best Songs of the 2000s" at numbers 37 and 13, respectively.
Jackson was born in Queens, New York City, and raised in the South Jamaica neighborhood by his mother, Sabrina. He never met his father and does not know who he is. A drug dealer, Sabrina raised Jackson until she died in a fire when Jackson was eight years old. Jackson said in an interview that she was a lesbian. After his mother's death, Jackson was raised by his grandparents. Jackson began boxing at about age 11, and when he was 14, a neighbor opened a boxing gym for local youth. "When I wasn't killing time in school, I was sparring in the gym or selling crack on the strip", he has said. He sold crack during primary school. "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 age 12, Jackson began dealing narcotics when his grandparents thought he was in after-school programs, and brought guns and drug money to school. In tenth grade, he was caught by metal detectors at Andrew Jackson High School: "I was embarrassed that I got arrested like that ... After I got arrested I stopped hiding it. I was telling my grandmother [openly], 'I sell drugs.'" On June 29, 1994, Jackson was arrested for selling four vials of cocaine to an undercover police officer. He was arrested again three weeks later when police searched his home and found heroin, ten ounces of crack cocaine, and a starting pistol. Jackson was sentenced to three to nine years in prison, but served six months in a boot camp and earned his GED. He has said that he did not use cocaine himself. Jackson adopted the nickname "50 Cent" as a metaphor for change. The name was inspired by Kelvin Martin, a 1980s Brooklyn robber known as "50 Cent"; Jackson chose it "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."
Jackson began rapping in a friend's basement, using turntables to record over instrumentals. In 1996, a friend introduced him to Jam Master Jay of Run-DMC, who was establishing Jam Master Jay Records. Jay taught him to count bars, write choruses, structure songs, and make records. In 1997, A&R of Def Jam Irv Gotti turned down demo tapes by Jackson that Jay showed him for a potential record deal on the grounds that they were too similar to Jay-Z. Jackson's first appearance was on "React" with Onyx, from its 1998 album Shut 'Em Down, which Gotti was the A&R for. He credited Jam Master Jay for improving his ability to write hooks, and Jay produced Jackson's first (unreleased) album. In 1999, after Jackson left Jam Master Jay, the platinum-selling producers Trackmasters signed him to Columbia Records. They sent him to an upstate New York studio, where he produced 36 songs in two weeks; 18 were included on his 2000 album Power of the Dollar. Jackson founded Hollow Point Entertainment with former G-Unit member Bang 'Em Smurf. Jackson's popularity began to grow after the successful, controversial underground single "How to Rob", which he wrote in a half-hour car ride to a studio. The track comically describes how he would rob famous artists. Jackson explained the song's rationale: "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, Wyclef Jean, and the Wu-Tang Clan responded to the track, and Nas invited Jackson to join him on his Nastradamus tour. Although "How to Rob" was intended to be released with "Thug Love" (with Destiny's Child), two days before he was scheduled to film the "Thug Love" video, Jackson was shot and hospitalized. On May 24, 2000, Jackson was attacked by a gunman outside his grandmother's former home in South Jamaica. After getting into a friend's car, he was asked to return to the house to get some jewelry; his son was in the house, and his grandmother was in the front yard. Jackson returned to the car, and another car pulled up nearby; an assailant walked up and fired nine shots at close range with a 9mm handgun. Jackson was shot in the hand, arm, hip, both legs, chest, and left cheek. His facial wound resulted in a swollen tongue, the loss of a wisdom tooth and a slightly slurred voice; his friend was wounded in the hand. They were driven to a hospital, where Jackson spent 13 days. The alleged attacker, Darryl "Homicide" Baum, Mike Tyson's close friend and bodyguard, was killed three weeks later. Jackson recalled the shooting: "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 shit, 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." Jackson used a walker for six weeks and fully recovered after five months. When he left the hospital, he stayed in the Poconos with his girlfriend and son, and his workout regime helped him develop a muscular physique. In the hospital, Jackson signed a publishing deal with Columbia Records before he was dropped from the label and blacklisted by the recording industry because of his song "Ghetto Qu'ran". Unable to work in a U.S. studio, he went to Canada. With business partner Sha Money XL, Jackson recorded over 30 songs for mixtapes to build a reputation. In a HitQuarters interview, Marc Labelle of Shady Records A&R said Jackson used the mixtape circuit to his advantage: "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 increased, and in 2002 he released the mixtape Guess Who's Back?. He then released 50 Cent Is the Future backed by G-Unit, a mixtape revisiting material by Jay-Z and Raphael Saadiq.
In 2002, Eminem received Guess Who's Back? from Jackson's attorney, who was working with Eminem's manager, Paul Rosenberg. Impressed, Eminem invited Jackson to Los Angeles and introduced him 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 appeared on Eminem's 8 Mile soundtrack. Jackson was also signed by Violator Management and Sha Money XL's Money Management Group. Jackson released his debut album, Get Rich or Die Tryin' (described by AllMusic as "probably the most hyped debut album by a rap artist in about a decade"), in February 2003. Rolling Stone noted its "dark synth grooves, buzzy keyboards and a persistently funky bounce", with Jackson complementing the production in "an unflappable, laid-back flow". It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, selling 872,000 copies in its first four days. The lead single, "In da Club" (noted by The Source for its "blaring horns, funky organs, guitar riffs and sparse hand claps"), set a Billboard record as the most listened-to song in radio history within a week. Interscope began funding and distributing for Jackson's label, G-Unit Records, in 2003. He signed Lloyd Banks, Tony Yayo, and Young Buck as members of G-Unit, and The Game was later signed in a joint venture with Dr. Dre's Aftermath Entertainment. G-Unit Records replaced Jackson's previous imprint, Rotten Apple Entertainment. 50 Cent executive produced Lloyd Banks's 2004 debut studio album, The Hunger for More, which achieved platinum status in the U.S. Jackson also contributed vocals to Banks's hit single "On Fire". In March 2005, Jackson's second commercial album, The Massacre, sold 1.14 million copies in its first four days (the highest in an abbreviated sales cycle) and was number one on the Billboard 200 for six weeks. He was the first solo artist with three singles in the Billboard top five in the same week with "Candy Shop", "Disco Inferno" and "How We Do". According to Rolling Stone, "50's secret weapon is his singing voice—the deceptively amateur-sounding tenor croon that he deploys on almost every chorus". Jackson's semi-autobiographical film Get Rich or Die Tryin', in which he starred, was released in November 2005. His video game, 50 Cent: Bulletproof was released the same month. He portrays himself and provides his likeness and voice in the game, which features music from his first two studio albums.
After The Game's departure, Jackson signed Olivia and rap veterans Mobb Deep to G-Unit Records, and later Spider Loc, M.O.P., 40 Glocc, and Young Hot Rod. All eventually left the label. Jackson expressed interest in working with rappers other than G-Unit, such as Lil' Scrappy of BME, LL Cool J of Def Jam, Mase of Bad Boy, and Freeway of Roc-A-Fella, and recorded with several.
In September 2007, Jackson released his third album, Curtis, inspired by his life before Get Rich or Die Tryin'. It debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, selling 691,000 copies during its first week. It sold behind Kanye West's Graduation, released the same day; the outcome of this highly publicized sales battle between Jackson and West has been accredited to the commercial decline of the gangsta rap and "bling era" style that previously dominated mainstream hip-hop. In January 2008, a New York attorney's report disclosed how musical artists like 50 Cent or Timbaland had been allegedly purchasing and consuming performance-enhacing drugs. Some of the artists mentioned in the report subsequently denied ever having consumed anabolic steroids. That same year, 50 Cent co-signed the underground rap group Bang Bang Boogie, which consisted of Mysonne, Cuban Link, Lord Tariq, Hocus 45th and S-One, giving them his stamp of approval. The group released the mixtapes The Machine, Vol. 1 and X-Files: No Mercy For The Weak in that same year before disbanding shortly due to Hocus and S-One being falsely incarcerated for gang-related crimes. The group was known for representing The Bronx and for their beef with Fat Joe as they dissed him on songs such as "High Blood Pressure" and "Bang Out". On September 10, 2008, episode of Total Request Live, Jackson said his fourth studio album, Before I Self Destruct, would be "done and released in November". He released "Ok, You're Right", produced by Dr. Dre for Before I Self Destruct, on May 18, 2009, and was scheduled to appear in a fall 2009 episode of VH1's Behind the Music. On September 3, 2009, Jackson posted a video for the Soundkillers' Phoenix- produced track, "Flight 187", introducing his mixtape and book (The 50th Law). The song, with lyrics inspiring speculation about tension between Jackson and Jay-Z, was a bonus track on the iTunes version of Before I Self Destruct. Before I Self Destruct was released on November 9, 2009, and debuted at number 5 on the Billboard 200, giving 50 Cent his fourth consecutive top 5 album in the U.S.
