Still livin’,
rappin’ and rich
WHETHER IT'S on wax or at a live show in front of thousands, hip-hop artists are relentless in their quest to "keep it real."
50 Cent
With special guest FabolousWhere: Neal Blaisdell Arena
When: 7 p.m. Tuesday
Tickets: $39.50 and $36.50
Call: 526-4400
For 26-year-old Queens, N.Y., native Curtis Jackson, now recognized by millions of fans as 50 Cent, his recollections of dealing crack cocaine and being shot nine times at close range -- and surviving -- are the ghetto qualifications that cement his credibility as a gangsta rap artist.
But it's 50's relationships with industry heavyweights like hip-hop icon Dr. Dre and star Eminem, and an insatiable urge to, as his quadruple platinum-selling album says, "Get Rich or Die Tryin'," that has allowed the former street pharmacist to inject himself directly into mainstream America and which brings him to Honolulu on Tuesday night.
The son of a crack-dealing mother and a father he never knew, 50 grew up in the Jamaica neighborhood of Queens, immersed in a culture of drugs and guns. When he was 8 years old, his mother was murdered (which he attributes to her occupation as a crack dealer); by the time he turned 12, 50 himself was hustling on the street with thugs twice his age.
Over the next decade, 50 was arrested numerous times, dropped out of high school, and realized his affinity for flowing on a microphone over beats. In 1996, he was introduced to another hip-hop icon, Run-DMC's Jam Master Jay, who is credited with teaching 50 the nuts and bolts of rhyming.
"He was really patient with me," he told Time Magazine. "I would come in with rhymes, almost free verse, and he explained that they had to fit 16 bars of music. Once he said it, I got it."
BY 1999, the rapper had impressed enough people in the industry to land a recording deal with Columbia Records. But the label didn't know how to handle a hardcore gangsta rap artist during a period when Latin music was enjoying newfound popularity, and dance tracks from artists like Alice Deejay and Sarina Paris got more play on mainstream radio than hip-hop did.
The knockout blow to 50's relationship with Columbia would come on May 24, 2000, when a trip to the studio from his grandmother's house was derailed by nine shots out of a handgun at almost point-blank range. One bullet cracked a bone in his hip; another tore out a chunk of his lower jaw and left a fragment lodged in his tongue; yet another went through his hand -- and those were only three of nine total shots he took.
Before 50 could fully recover from his injuries, Columbia dropped him from their stable of artists. "It was more painful not having my telephone calls returned after I came out of the hospital than getting shot in the first place," he lamented in a recent Burner article. At this point it was Eminem, who heard what happened to 50 and was amazed by his quick return to the New York mixtape circuit (he oversaturated the market with material, releasing the equivalent of more than three albums in just a few months), who flew the rapper to Los Angeles for a meeting. And the rest, they say, is history.
SINCE HIS signing with the Aftermath / Shady camp, 50 has taken his raw knowledge of the street hustle and adapted it to suit a more corporate situation. He's also realized there's a time and place to "keep it real."
"I'm my grandmother's baby," he readily admits. "But once I'm outside, I do whatever I gotta do to get by." What used to be pushing drugs on a street corner is now promoting CDs on MTV's Total Request Live and an upcoming summer concert series with Jay-Z.
His "New Breed" DVD release is another groundbreaking idea among hip-hop artists; it incorporates a documentary, live concert and music video footage with a second audio disc of new material. For someone who got his G.E.D. while in prison, 50 has a firm grasp on the idea of superserving his customers.
Yet as the saying goes, "You can take the boy out of the ghetto, but you can't take the ghetto out of the boy." Once a millionaire via illegal means, 50 is now enjoying the fruits of working honestly for a living. But now he can't travel without a team of bodyguards, and it isn't unusual to see him wearing a Kevlar vest both on stage and in public. And it's not haters in the business he's worried about.
"This ain't no rap war," he explains. "This have nothin' to do with no rappers. The gangsters don't like that I do whatever the f--- I wanna do ... the people that dislike me have nothin' to lose. I'm from the bottom. They're uneasy about still bein' on the bottom."
Security is a very important issue for 50, even here in paradise. One local radio station, recognizing the sheer impossibility of getting a meet-and-greet opportunity with the rapper, asked for a backstage session with Fabolous for its listeners instead. According to a station employee, the request was denied by 50's management, who said the security risk presented by Fabolous' fans would be too high.
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