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Posted by Robert
Rap News Network
9/25/2003 1:08:30 PM
Tags and topics realted to this article include 50 Cent.
IN A world where disputes are settled with gunfire and being "real" is everything, there is one man who claims to be the baddest gangsta rapper of them all.
50 Cent - the hip-hop star who has survived nine bullet wounds to his face and body - is still wanted for questioning by the New Jersey Police in connection with another firearms incident.
But tonight he goes on stage at Wembley Arena in front of thousands of Brits. Yet what his young fans may not know is that 50 Cent may not be quite as real as he would have us believe.
An expose in respected hip-hop magazine The Source claims that his first stage name was Boo Boo and he spent a mere seven months in a boot camp for minor drug offences - not the "three-to-nine" year stretch he refers to in his songs. It is also claimed that the rapper was so scared of a rival that he applied for a protection order.
In the flesh, however, 50 Cent is convincingly blase about both an attempt on his life and an assault on his street cred. In April 2000 he was shot nine times, including a 9mm round to the face.
So perhaps it is with some justification that he says: "No one can rap about the streets if they haven't been there.
"I'm real and I know there are people out there who want me dead. But I've been dealing with these situations because it's nothing new. It doesn't alter my mood. I can look after myself and I'm not scared of death."
Whether he's scared or not, 50 Cent travels everywhere with an entourage of six armed bodyguards at an estimated cost of around £20,000 a week. Even his six-year-old son Marquise wears a bullet-proof vest.
And, according to the New York Police Department, it's money well spent.
"50 Cent needs the protection," one police source told the Daily Mirror.
"He says he isn't scared but he has upset a lot of people and now he's in the limelight, he has to stop boasting about what he's done and where he's been."
According to the 50 Cent legend peddled on his website, the rapper was already dealing drugs in Jamaica, Queens, by the age of 12.
His mother was a career drug-pusher who gave birth to him when she was 15 and died when he was eight. She was gassed in her apartment - probably by a business rival.
The youngster - who's real name is Curtis Jackson - was brought up by his grandparents.
Appearances at school were rare and he was barely in his teens when he was given three-and-a-half grams of cocaine by some of his late mother's old associates and told to earn himself some money.
Even away from the street, 50 Cent says he feels no remorse about selling drugs. "Guilt for how? Try telling a kid that's 12 years old, 'If you do good in school for eight more years you can have a car.'"
By 15 he had his first gun and by 18 he claims he was known and feared throughout the neighbourhood, controlling his own crack house and making £3,000 a day.
Depending on which version you believe, it was either his lengthy jail sentences or the birth of his son that made him decide the only safe way out of the streets was hip-hop.
He marketed his music with the same ruthless organisation he had used to push drugs and it wasn't long before underground tapes started to circulate and he was offered a record contract.
Then one morning in May 2000, a hitman stuck a 9mm gun through the window of 50 Cent's car and started firing.
"He did it right. He just didn't finish," he says with his customary bravado. "You don't actually feel each one hit you. The adrenaline is pumping.
"You are moving and trying to get out of the way. I was bouncing around on the back seat."
Three weeks later the gunman was dead.
50 Cent has both denied he had anything to do with it and hinted to the contrary. Whatever the truth, it served to increase his mystique and helped get the attention of Eminem, who signed him to his record label.
But with 50 Cent's bullet wounds starting to fade, his new battle is to save his respect on the street.
"He's a fraud," The Source claims. "People in the inner city are being shot every day and have survived.
"The one thing that everyone knows about this guy is that he's been shot nine times.
"It's been highlighted by his management team, who have a vested interest in keeping all this drama out there."
And even the police are sceptical about some of his claims.
Detective John Kovatch of the New Jersey Police Department said: "We've had a lot of dealings with 50 Cent. He's been in his fair share of trouble but not so much since he has become famous.
HE has people to look after him now. I'm sure he exaggerates his convictions in his songs but isn't that what rappers do?"
The allegations have also played into the hands of his arch rivals at rap record company Murder Inc.
The label's most popular artist Ja Rule has already written lyrics saying 50 Cent is a stool pigeon. In return, 50 Cent has taunted his nemesis on his track, Wangsta.
And now the exchange of insults on CD is spilling on to the streets with a rapper from the Murder Inc label and a member 50 Cent's "crew" shot dead this month alone.
But he still believes it is the drug dealers he left behind who pose the greatest threat to his life.
"The people that dislike me have nothing to lose," he explains.
"When they see you driving in a Benz, they have a problem. It's envy - they waiting on the bus, you in the Benz. I'm from the bottom. They're uneasy about still being on the bottom."
In fact, 50 Cent claims he wants to surprise us all by living to a ripe old age. "I'm going to get one of those lifetime achievement awards," he says.
"People love the bad guy. I watch movies all the time and root for the bad guy and turn it off before the end because the bad guy dies. But sometimes he gets a record deal and becomes a superstar."
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