Hes dead, says rapper 50 Cent, as his finger darts across a creased photo. The wrinkled relicwhich an old friend recently found and shoved quite unexpectedly into his hand here on the corner of Guy R. Brewer Boulevard while 50 is giving a tour of his Jamaica, Queens hauntsdepicts a semicircle of grown men dressed in tuxedos, with champagne glasses raised in a toast. In the middle of this Godfather-esque image is the beaming face of 50 Cent. He looks to be about 17. But in a weird way, due to his confident smile and relaxed body language, the man-child fits into the scene more than he doesnt. 50 continues, revealing the desperate fates that those in the photo succumbed to. Him, too. That nikka in jail. He on the run. He chuckles, I dont even know what happened to that nikka!
However, despite this particular image having been captured years ago, this scene is far from ancient history for 50 Cent, born Curtis Jackson. From Big to Eazy to Jay, rappers have often rhymed about their devious days supplying crack to fiends. For this 23-year-old MC, those days are still alarmingly close. I was hustlin tillumlast month, he says. Back when How To Rob came out, I wasnt physically on the block myself, but I was still on the street.
Standing on this Guy R. Brewer Boulevard corner (known in the pre-Giuliani days as New York Boulevard) in front of an anonymous Chinese takeout spot, 50 Cent is surrounded by friends and acquaintances. Always dressed in a football jersey (this time Tampa Bay), he seems like a king. Its more than just the contrast of these obese platinumand diamondencrusted cross dangling perilously from his neck against the poverty that surrounds him on the strip. Its his air. 50who originally named himself in honor of an infamous Fort Greene, Brooklyn, hustler but now claims that his moniker simply represents changeholds himself regally.
50 also started training to be a boxer as a preteen. His new skills gave him focus and discipline and were easily applicable in the street. It suited his thug mentality perfectly, and he became a sort of neighborhood bully. I figured out that I could fukk these nikkas up, so I got more aggressive, he says of his days tormenting other hustlers and random kids on the block. If I stumbled over somebodys stash, I was takin it. Im gonna go home and change their [vile] tops to my tops and then come right back out with em. I had my differences around here.
50s money, power, and respect grew but so did the danger. Ive been arrested seven or eight times, if you count the juvenile shyt, he says, referencing to the drug possession charges hes received over the years. Twenty-two months is the longest that Ive been locked up. His last charge was for criminal possession of 5 grams of coke.
