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50 Cent: Rapper 50 Cent
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Red-hot rapper 50 Cent has teamed up with Snoop Dogg for a remix of the rapper's "P.I.M.P." The original version of the song is currently Number 34 on the urban Radio &... more >
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Born Curtis James Jackson, III in South Jamaica, Queens on July 6, 1975, 50 Cent has eclipsed his mentor Eminem as the pre-eminent gangsta’ rapper of the day. Like Marshall Mathers did with 8 Mile, Fitty decided to make his feature film debut by keeping it real with a semi-autobiographical docu-drama.
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Once snubbed of his breakthrough opportunity, Queens rapper 50 Cent retreated to the mix-tape circuit for a brief moment before a major-label bidding war ensued in 2002. The grimy, street-level rapper's career underwent many ups and downs over the years. In the late '90s, after he united with the Trackmasters and Sony/Columbia Records, his breakthrough seemed ensured. But on the eve of his release date in 1999, he was shot. Even worse, Columbia pulled his album, Power of the Dollar, claiming that it had been too heavily bootlegged for release. Rather than sulk, 50 Cent began recording dozens of tracks for release in the underground.
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In many ways the ideal East Coast hardcore rapper, 50 Cent endured substantial obstacles throughout his young yet remarkably dramatic life before becoming in early 2003 the most discussed figure in rap, if not pop music in general. Following an unsuccessful late-'90s run at mainstream success (foiled by an attempt on his life in 2000) and a successful run on the New York mixtape circuit (driven by his early-2000s bout with Ja Rule), Eminem signed 50 to a seven-figure contract in 2002 and helmed his quick rise toward crossover success in 2003. The product of a broken home in the rough Jamaica neighborhood of Queens and, in turn, the storied hood's hustling streets themselves, 50 lived everything most rappers write rhymes about but not all actually experience: drugs, crimes, imprisonments, stabbings, and most infamously of all, shootings -- all of this before he even released his debut album. Of course, such experiences became 50's rhetorical stock-in-trade. He reveled in his oft-told past, he called out wannabe gangstas, and he made headlines. He even looked like the ideal East Coast hardcore rapper: big-framed with oft-showcased biceps, abs, and tattoos as well as his trademark bulletproof vest, pistol, and iced crucifix.
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Rapper 50 Cent (born Curtis Jackson in 1977) was raised in Southside Jamaica, Queens. His first big break came in 1996 when Run-DMC’s Jam Master Jay signed him to JMJ Records. He was later picked up by Columbia and subsequently dropped after being shot nine times in April 2000. 50 recovered and built a reputation on his stellar bootlegs, one of which made its way into the hands of Eminem, who signed him to a joint Shady Records/Aftermath Records deal in 2002. His debut album, 2003’s Get Rich or Die Tryin’, executive produced by Eminem and Dr. Dre, shot to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart.
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Rapper 50 Cent (aka Curtis Jackson) was photographed in August 1994 while serving time in a New York State Department of Correctional Services shock incarceration program. 50, then 19, had pleaded guilty to felony charges of peddling heroin and crack cocaine.
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Rapper 50 Cent