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How 50 Cent Went From Gangsta Rapper to Hollywood's Hottest TV Producer
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Feb 5, 2024
#50cent #power #money Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson exploded into the music scene 20+ years ago. In that time, he's gone from a hot gangster rapper to filing for bankruptcy to becoming Hollywood's hottest TV producer. In this video, we look at 50's incredible journey. Link to "90 Days of Black Excellence" : https://a.co/d/0snjJq0 Subscribe to our channel so you don't miss any future videos! Add your email to our list to stay updated- BlackExcellence.com Check out the books we love and recommend in our Black Excellence Book Club: https://www.blackexcellence.com/store/ Some links are affiliate links, which means we earn a very tiny commission if you make a purchase. __________________________________________________________ Money Lessons Made Simple. All content provided by Black Excellence Media, LLC is for entertainment purposes only. None of the information provided is to replace professional advice.
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20 years ago, 50 Cent was a dominant presence on the radio with hit after hit
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Just 3 years before his hit debut album, Get Rich or Die Trying, 50 Cent was shot 9 times
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at close range and dropped from Columbia Records. He went on from there to dominate hip hop for the next decade and made a fortune as
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an early investor in Vitaminwater. Then in 2015 he declared bankruptcy. Then he came out of that to become one of Hollywood's most talked about and successful
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TV producers. So how did this gangster rapper that barely escaped death and went bankrupt become a powerhouse
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TV producer? Let's take a deep dive into Curtis Jackson, aka 50 Cent's astonishing journey in today's
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episode of Money Talk. Is there a difference in the personality between Curtis Jackson and your persona as 50 Cent
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Yeah, well Curtis Jackson is my grandmother's child. That's my grandmother's baby
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That's when I clean up. When I clean up, I'm Curtis Jackson. Can you show me the difference? Can you show me like who, this is Curtis
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This is Curtis. And here's 50. 50 Cent was born and raised in the South Jamaican neighborhood of Queens, New York
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He was raised by a single mother, Sabrina, until she passed when he was only 8 years old
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His grandparents stepped in to take care of him after his mother passed and his father left
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He took up boxing when he was only 11 and selling crack when he was still in primary school
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He was arrested twice in 1994 for selling drugs and only served 6 months in a boot camp
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when his original sentence was for 3 to 9 years. He adopted the name 50 Cent, a name inspired by Kelvin Martin, a 1980s Brooklyn robber known
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as 50 Cent. He began rapping in his friend's basement and was introduced to Jam Master Jay of RunDMC
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in 1996. 50's first appearance was on React with Onyx for their 1998 album Shut Em Down
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He was then signed to Columbia Records in 1999 and recorded his first studio album
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Power of the Dollar, in 2000. Two days before he was scheduled to film a music video for one of his first singles off
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that album, 50 was involved in the now infamous shooting outside his grandmother's former
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home in South Jamaica. Who shoots somebody in front of their grandma's home
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God dang. 50 was sitting in a friend's car when the assailant Darryl Homicide Bomb, who was Mike
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Tyson's close friend and bodyguard by the way, walked up to 50's car and shot him 9
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times at close range. He was shot in the arm, hip, both legs, chest, and in the face in his left cheek
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He had to use a walker for 6 weeks, but he recovered after only 5 months
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And even though he did recover really fast physically, the shooting had left massive
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damage to his career. Columbia Records dropped him. With no prospect of a deal from any other record companies, 50 went to Canada and recorded
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over 30 songs for his mixtape, and landed in the hands of a certain someone by the name
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of Eminem. Impressed by what he heard, Eminem invited 50 to fly to LA and introduce him to none
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other than the mega producer Dr. Dre. Dr. Dre wasted no time in signing 50 in a $1 million deal and 50's debut album, Get
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Rich or Die Tryin', followed soon after. The album sold 872,000 copies in its first 4 days, which for all you streamers was actually
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pretty crazy back then. 50's second album, The Massacre, sold even more copies, 1.14 million in its first 4 days
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He became the first solo artist with 3 singles in the Billboard Top 5 in the same week with
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Candy Shop, Disco Inferno, and How We Do. His record label, G-Unit Records, also had successful artists like The Game, Young Buck
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and Lloyd Banks on its roster. But 50's later albums did not score the same success as his first two
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Several factors played a role here, including a change in the sound of hip hop and some
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conflict 50 was having with Interscope Records, which he had a distribution deal with
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I was actually working at Interscope at that time. He also probably picked a bad beef with Kanye West
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By that time, 50 had already established a solid investment portfolio outside of music
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One of his biggest investments aside from G-Unit's various business ventures was a
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partnership with Glasso, an enhanced water company. He was given a minority share in the company in 2004 in exchange for becoming a spokesperson
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The brand's famous drink is of course, Vitamin Water, which later got sold to Coca-Cola for
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$4.1 billion. 50 walked away with a deal worth $100 million after taxes
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Guys, please do your research and learn how to invest in businesses instead of hiding
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your money under your mattress. His other business ventures included real estate, mining, boxing promotion, consumer
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electronics, and vodka. With all of this success, it wasn't a surprise when 50 filed for bankruptcy in 2015
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That's until the details of his finances were revealed. The Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing came days after a jury ordered him to pay $5 million
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to Laestonia Leveston, Rick Ross' ex-girlfriend for invading her privacy by posting an online
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sex tape of her and another man. He also had another case where he was ordered to pay $17.2 million to an ex-business partner
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It was cited in court documents that 50 had between $10 and $50 million in assets and
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about the same amount in debt. At the same time, he owned seven cars valued at more than $500,000 and had monthly expenses
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of $108,000 with monthly income of only $185,000. Remember that monster of a house 50 owned in Connecticut
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The 50,000 square foot house was owned by Mike Tyson before 50 bought it
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It had 21 bedrooms, 39 bathrooms, and 7 kitchens. Commenting on his decision to later sell the mansion, 50 once said, you can have the 55,000
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square foot, 37 bathrooms, 6 kitchens, and you're still going to sleep in only one bed
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So if you look at everything, it was obvious he filed for bankruptcy to protect himself
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against the financial judgments he had out against him. By 2017, 50 had worked up a deal to pay off more than $22 million in debt to be discharged
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from bankruptcy. 50 Cent's journey to becoming a mega Hollywood producer actually started way before Power
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premiered in 2014. Do you guys all love Power? He founded two film production companies in the 2000s, one being G-Unit Films in 2003
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and the other being Cheetah Visions in 2008. Cheetah Vision was producing low-budget action thrillers for foreign film markets when G-Unit
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Films, rebranded as G-Unit Films and Television Inc., started a joint venture with producer
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Will Packard's production company, Will Packard Productions. 50 pitched a crime drama to stars by the name of Power, which quickly became a ratings hit
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By the time Power got to its third season, it was the second most watched show on cable
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behind only one of my favorite shows of all time, Game of Thrones
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50 Cent was cast in a supporting role, but serves as co-creator and executive producer
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Although Power ended in 2020, it has spawned four more spin-off series, and 50 didn't
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stop there. Stars made a $150 million development deal with 50 in 2018
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The network picked up the show's black mafia family and Queen Nzinga since then
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He has also executive produced The Oath, For Life, and the documentary series Hip Hop Homicides
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In 2023, 50 Cent inked a new television deal with Fox. The deal is non-exclusive, which means 50 can produce other shows for other networks
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And you better believe he will continue to pump out hits, now for the screen instead
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of the radio. 50 Cent's unlikely story of success is one that we can all learn from
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Don't ever count yourself out. Diversify your streams of income with smart investments, and you don't ever have to
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be just one thing all your life if you have other aspirations
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Just like 50 Cent went from gangster rapper to one of the hottest TV producers in Hollywood
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you too can go from wherever you are now to wherever you want to be. That's it for this episode, we'll be back with more money talks
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