50 Cent Interview: Money to Burn (Page 2)

Obviously one of the hottest outcomes of Dr. Dre's teamwork with Cent is "Get Rich or Die Tryin'"s first single, "In Da Club," which is also the first song 50 recorded with the Doc. Not only has it become a club staple, but if you roll down your window at a red light these days you can almost count on hearing "Go shaw-tee it's your birthday" coming out of a nearby car.

"The first record I start with is 'In Da Club' and the last record I play is 'In Da Club,' " said DJ Kid Capri, who produced "Rowdy, Rowdy" for 50 in 1999. "When I play that sh-- [at the club], I don't care who's in there, whatever nationality, male or female, muthaf---as step to the floor and people be rockin'. The record is played four or five times in a row and they never get tired of it."

"It's so universal that the whole world can rock to it when it comes on," Snoop Dogg said of the cut. "I dance to 'In Da Club' onstage. When we perform, we got a little section called the 'Smoke Break' where we let everybody dance and groove a little bit. We play that song and they go crazy for it."

"Dre, he'll play dope beats ... they're automatic," 50 described of the studio process. "[He'll say], 'These are the hits, 50. So pick one of these and make a couple of singles or something.' The very first time he heard [me rap on] 'In Da Club' he said, 'Yo, I didn't think you was going to go there with it, but, you know, it works.' He was probably thinking of going in a different direction with that song. Then he expanded it into a hit record. [Dre and Em] made me a lot better, fast."

"There's not much fixing involved, which is a beautiful thing," Em said about 50.

50 came to Em and Dre with 30 songs, enough for almost three albums. According to the Queens MC, they had a difficult time choosing which songs to keep. Among those that made the grade were 50's first big hit, the blissfully simplistic "Wanksta," and sonic hurricane "What Up Gangsta," where 50 shouts out the gangs: "What up Blood/ What up cous/ What up Blood/ What up gangstaaa."

Of course, an album coming out on Shady/Aftermath is going to have the production stamp of the head honchos. 50 shuttled back and forth for a couple of months, securing Em's vehement, grisly melodies in Detroit and Dre's piano and bass-driven g-funk in L.A.

Among the four soundscapes Dre masterminded on the album is "Heat," which blends piano chords, the sound of a gun being cocked and gunshots. On the cut, 50 uses a conversational flow to inflect his threats: "I'll do what I gotta do/ I don't care if I get caught," he rhymes. "The DA could play this muthaf---in' tape in court/ I'll kill you."

Meanwhile, Em, who produced two beats and co-produced a couple of others, grants his signee's wish on "Patiently Waiting," where 50 uses another of his myriad of flows, this time slithering across the track and rhyming about how long he's been yearning for a dope beat.

"Em is so talented it becomes annoying," 50 said with a laugh. "Every time we go to the studio, he's got something new to play and it's like, 'Oh man, I gotta have something new to play, too.' Em is the rapper's rapper. He listens to everything. Every word, every slang, if you change something he's going to hear it all."

50 says that he and Em have formed a friendship outside the studio, but haven't had too much time to hang out because of their rigorous schedules. Among the things they talk about when they do touch base are raising their children and those hip-hop haters.

"More people hate Eminem than 50 Cent because Eminem is number one," 50 explained. "It's just a different class of people that hate Eminem [than hate me]. People that hate Eminem get a headache every time they see his face because he's so good. You got actors out there that still don't have films that break $100 million, but Eminem [did that on his] first go around."

Those that have problems with 50 have entirely different reasons for hating him. And they're entirely different people.

"I come from the bottom so the people that dislike me have nothing to lose. I got to be prepared for a knucklehead," the rapper said.

50 wasn't prepared in 2000 when he was assailed with bullets as he sat in the backseat of a car outside his grandmother's Queens residence. He was shot several times in the leg, in his right thumb (that shell exited through his pinky), his arm and in his mouth. The latter wound shaved off part of his gums and left a hole in between the top and bottom rows of his teeth, and would cause a small, but permanent, change in his voice.

"It happens so fast that you don't even get a chance to shoot back," he said about the attack. "You can't move. Your first reaction is to move and then the shots is going off and you jumping around the backseat. I was scared the whole time. Ain't nobody gonna tell you they ain't scared in that situation. It's a hit, man. You supposed to die in that situation. They're not playing.

"[After they finished shooting] I was looking in the rearview mirror like, 'Oh sh--, somebody shot me in the face!" he continued. "It burns. Burns, burns, burns. The adrenaline is pumping so fast that the pain is not really that bad until the doctors finish with you. Then that morphine wears off and then you're introduced to the pain."

He spent 13 days in the hospital, and it would take him close to five months to rehabilitate himself. During part of that time he had to use a walker to get around. The physical therapy and workout regimen, though, helped him attain his current fit physique.

50 first encountered life-changing distress almost two decades ago. When he was 8 years old, his mother, who used to hustle in their neighborhood, was murdered.

"My grandmother and them told me, 'Your mother's not coming home,' " he recollected nonchalantly. " '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."

As young Curtis became a little older, he delved further into the streets, and by the time he was 12 he was already following in his mother's footsteps.

"Yeah, she did her thing," he stated, showing no emotion. "That's what made it easier to get involved with selling drugs, because all of the people that I had met when I was young were all people who sold drugs."

50's narcotics peddling caught up to him, not while he was standing on a corner serving some addict, but during a regular day at Andrew Jackson High School.

"At that point I was hustling, so I used to hide [the crack] pieces from my grandmother," he recounted. "I had it in a pair of gym shoes and I picked up the wrong gym shoes [to wear to school]. I went to school and at the time at Andrew Jackson we had metal detectors. So when we went through the metal detection at the high school, [they ended up searching me and] they found the pieces and they locked me up. I was out of school for a few weeks.

"I was embarrassed that I got arrested like that," 50 continued. "That's the worst way to get arrested. After I got arrested I stopped hiding it. I was telling my grandmother [openly], 'I sell drugs.' "

50's implacable willingness to say what's on his mind, combined with his dark humor, served as the catalyst for his industry breakthrough, "How to Rob," which came out on the Trackmasters' label in 1999. Before he signed a deal with Columbia Records, 50 found his first alternative to selling drugs by signing a production deal with Run-DMC's Jam Master Jay. Although Jay never wrote any of 50's lyrics, the late great record spinner would drop jewels on his protégé about the art of making songs.

"50 is an artist who actually hung with Jay when he wasn't in the studio," said DMC, who features his fellow line thrower on his first solo album. "It was like, 'Yo, Jay taught me about bars, Jay taught me how to write hooks and what was the purpose. And Jay taught me how to write and make rap records. He made me want to really rap and do this.' "

Jay remained 50's close friend even after the two parted ways on the business end, and always offered advice.

"It's weird because I saw Jay two days before he got killed," 50 said. "He was telling me about some film opportunities that he had and he wanted me to be involved in it. He was like, 'Yo son, you can really blow up. It's gonna be crazy.' Then he was telling me, 'Yo, you got to watch [your back], you can't be out in the 'hood. You can't go back. [You have to] act like you used drugs and this is [narcotics] anonymous — you have to change your people, places and things.' "

But 50 will never leave the 'hood if he has anything to do with it. No matter how huge of a star he becomes, no matter how tightly the mainstream cradles him in its collective bosom, he says he'll remain in the streets, even if he's not there physically.

" I'm never gonna give up my presence in the streets, because without that I wouldn't have the opportunities to do what I'm doing now," 50 said about continuing to flood the mixtape market. "I can't allow that. That's my core base, so if that's gone I don't think I'll exist long. It might be one day [the masses] decide, 'Oh 50's not hot no more, this other guy is,' and I'm gone. If your original base is not there, how do you expect to stay?"

For now, 50 doesn't have to worry about losing any love from anyone, especially his biggest fan, who may have just slipped down one notch on the "hot boy" ratings.

"Undoubtedly 50 will be the hottest rapper this year," said Eminem. "I wish my first album was this hot."

/Shaheem Reid, with additional reporting by Sway Calloway, SuChin Pak, Heather Parry and Curtis Waller

Related Links

50 Cent Interesting Facts

Interviews & Articles

Get Rich or Die Tryin' Production Details

50 Cent Interview: Money to Burn

Eminem Special: The Serious Side of Eminem

NY Rock Interview: It's Lonely on the Top